


Dreams Under My Pillow

by skeletondance



Category: Free!
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Boypussy, Dry Humping, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Id Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 04:55:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletondance/pseuds/skeletondance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Werewolf AU)</p><p>Rin rejects Nitori once and for all. Nitori starts to get friendly with the captain of the school soccer team.</p><p>NB: unlikely to update any time soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note on gems: in this universe, in werewolf culture it's a custom to wear a small engraved stone ([like](http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages/AN00930/AN00930870_001_l.jpg) [these](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Greco-Roman_-_Cameo_Ring_with_a_Prancing_Horse_-_Walters_42112.jpg)) which is unique to the individual. These are worn at all times. Gems vary in shape and size and are worn in different styles depending on rank, fashion, family tradition, etc. In present day Japan in this world, the fashion at the moment is for omegas to wear their gem as a pendant on a necklace, while alphas have a ring or brooch. These are just fashions however, so deviation is not uncommon (though how a gem is worn does carry certain connotations). 
> 
> When a romantic relationship gets serious, it's normal to 'exchange gems', sort of like wearing someone's pin or class ring when you start 'going steady'/dating. It's just a formal way of signifying to other werewolves that you're spoken for or in a committed relationship.
> 
> *
> 
> -Timeline: set during season 1, I made a vague span of time between Prefecturals and Regionals where this story is meant to fit in. Rei hasn't confronted Rin yet, things go canon divergent once Rin and Nitori's relationship changes pre-Regionals.  
> -Omega healing: in this universe some omegas have the ability to heal other wolves. It's not very common, and more often omegas simply provide comfort to a person who is ill or injured.  
> -Omega anatomy: they have boypussies (pussy, no cock). Sex stuff is from chapter 7 onwards.  
> -This fic contains: dependancy, power imbalance in a relationship, gender essentialism, canon-typical aggression from Rin.  
> -[Here is some beautiful art done by limeywaffles!](http://limeywaffles.tumblr.com/post/83495748569/inspired-by-my-favorite-rintori-fic-dreams-under) I love it so much! <333  
>  _(March 2015: I finally got around to watching season 2. Welp. Rin's shoulder now seems like an over-used plot devise lmao)_

Rin came into the block with a mighty tide of water that rolled over the side and hit Nitori's feet and ankles.

Nitori punched the time, the stopwatch clutched between both his hands.

“Time,” Rin barked, blowing water from his upper lip, pulling up his goggles. His cheeks were flushed with exertion, his face tense and waiting.

Nitori consulted the stopwatch again, trying to delay.

“It's—it's your shoulder, Senpai,” he said, “you know you need to rest it—”

“ _Time_ ,” Rin said again in a hard voice.

Nitori let his hands drop to his sides.

“Five-twelve.”

Rin turned his head away sharply, the muscle at his jaw clenched stiff.

Nitori watched him anxiously for a moment, then just as he was about the speak, Rin reached up and fixed his goggles roughly back over his eyes, his face set with determination. Nitori's heart sank.

“Please, Senpai! If you keep going you could make your shoulder much worse than it already is—“

“Again,” Rin snapped. He reached up and gripped the bar with both hands, bracing himself. “Set.”

Nitori stood uncertain, wanting to argue, knowing that it would only anger Rin further.

He glanced anxiously at the stopwatch in his hands, then at Rin, who had turned his head and was glaring at him now, the open irritation in his look a warning.

Nitori thumbed the button to clear the timer and nodded to indicate he was ready.

~*~

“Maybe you should visit the nurse—you know there's a physiotherapist who comes once a week? The nurse could ask him to look at your shoulder—”

Rin finished jamming his bag savagely into his locker. He lifted his water bottle and drank deeply. He was still breathing a little fast, still dripping pool water.

"A hot shower will help," Nitori said, trying a different tack, hoping to sound proactive instead of just worried. "That's the best thing, right? If you have a long hot shower, it helps the circulation."

There was a clatter of something being dropped in the corridor outside and the echo of boys' laughter and then suddenly the door of the changing room banged open. A group of four boys came in, shouting and joking, two of them locked together in a boisterous mock-fight.

They were all four of them alphas, and Nitori's attention was drawn to them at once. Reflex and long experience had him dart a swift look their way, taking stock of them as a group and individually, a preliminary assessment that lasted all of a two or three seconds before he dropped his gaze politely.

The slam of Rin's locker door caused Nitori to jump, and made the noise level dip as the other boys looked over.

Rin swiped at his neck with his towel, rubbed his chin and his mouth and his cheeks.

Nitori fiddled with the gem on his bracelet. He took a step closer to Rin, feeling a little exposed. The other boys had resumed their conversation, though they were more subdued now. They knew Rin by sight, like most of the swim team, and they knew about his quick temper.

Nitori was about to ask again about Rin's sore shoulder, but seeing the forbidding downturn of the older boy's mouth, he thought better of it.

"Are you hungry?" he said instead. "We could go to the canteen and get some lunch. You didn't have any breakfast, so you must be—"

Rin turned and Nitori stepped neatly out of his way, but somehow Rin still bumped Nitori's shoulder, leaving a small wet imprint on his t-shirt.

"You won't try and swim again today, will you?" Nitori said, trotting after Rin. "If you've pulled a muscle you're only going to make it worse if you keep putting stress on it—"

"Are you a doctor now?" Rin said, stopping so abruptly that Nitori almost walked into the back of him. He turned, glaring down at Nitori.

"No!" Nitori tried a small smile. "But you should listen to your body if it tells you it's hurting! That's what Captain always says."

"Do I look like I give a shit what Mikoshiba has to say about anything?"

Rin had his towel slung round his neck, his hands gripping either end rigidly.

Something in Nitori quailed at the prospect of persisting with this, but the thought of Rin causing himself unnecessary pain made him hold to his resolve.

"I think—" Nitori forced himself to make eye contact with Rin once more. "If you give yourself some time to rest—you'll feel stronger and you'll be able to swim faster—"

"Are you saying I'm _weak_ right now?" Rin said, his voice low, very slightly uneven, dangerous.

Nitori's eyes flew wide. It wasn't anything frivolous to call an alpha weak—especially for an omega to do so.

"N-No! Of course not!" he cried. "I only meant—"

"You don't have to lie," Rin ground out. "You're the one who's been monitoring my times. I've been getting slower and slower, haven't I? That's what you're trying to say." His fingers were curled tight, gripping the ends of his towel so that his knuckles were white.

"No! I just don't want you to hurt yourself!" Nitori said, speaking fast. "Even someone as skilled as you can get injured. I know it's frustrating, but all athletes get injuries at some time—"

"Just _shut up!_ " Rin swung his arm out at his side, his fist striking the lockers with a terrible noise.

Nitori shrank back, feeling the anger around Rin, a palpable aura.

Rin made a scornful noise and turned away, and Nitori took a step after him, unthinking, reaching for the older boy's arm.

"Senpai!"

The alpha rounded on him, throwing Nitori's hand off with a violent jerk of his arm.

"I didn't think you were an omega who couldn't take a hint," he said viciously. "Stop embarrassing yourself."

Nitori felt the words like a slap. He ducked his head, painfully conscious of the other boys in the echoing changing room.

Rin was watching Nitori like he expected him to answer back, and when Nitori stayed silent, it only seemed to enrage him more.

"I don't need a nursemaid! I don't need you fussing and following me around all day like some lost puppy! I don't need you giving me your damn opinion all the time!"

"S-Senpai–I–" Nitori's voice failed him. It was hard to work up the nerve to speak again, and when he did his voice was small. "I just worry for you—"

"Why?" Rin said explosively. "Who asked you to?"

Nitori had no answer. He tucked his chin down, his hands clasped in front of him.

Rin pointed suddenly at Nitori's wrist, at his gem and bracelet.

"Why do you even wear it like that? Don't you know how childish that looks?"

Nitori put his hand over his wrist, hiding the gem. His face was burning.

“You should know your place and stop being so willful. You act like you're just waiting for me to ask for your gem. Is that what you think's going to happen?” Rin paused for a beat. “Answer!” he snapped.

“No,” Nitori mumbled, tightening his hold on the bracelet.

“Good. Get it through your head then and stop hanging on me all the time. I need to concentrate on my training, I have to be totally focused, I can't be worrying about any omega shit. You're not some little cub anymore, Nitori, so I'm telling you like an adult: I don't want an omega. I don't want you for my omega. Do you understand?”

To his mortification, Nitori felt that his eyes were stinging, his throat getting tighter and tighter like there was a stone stuck there and he was trying to swallow around it.

Of course he'd had childish daydreams and fantasies, he'd lingered over them in his most private moments, replayed in his head over and over small things that Rin had done or said, relished any moment when he and Rin got to be together. For the first few weeks at the beginning of first term he'd been almost too awed and flustered to speak to Rin, he'd blushed whenever Rin was close, stared in fascination when Rin wasn't looking, almost stumbled down a flight of stairs the first time Rin had lightly cuffed at the back of his neck in a casual, unthinking gesture of dominance.

All the same, as time went on, Nitori had hoped he'd learned to be reasonably covert about it all. He'd thought it was his secret. Clearly, he'd been wrong.

The worst thing was that he knew very well that it was all just silly dreaming, childish. Of course he never thought that an alpha like Rin would seriously consider him for a match. It was humiliating, intolerable, that Rin would believe he had such an inflated idea of himself, that he'd ever be so presumptuous as to imagine himself Rin's match.

He wanted to say this, to protest and explain himself—but what could he say now that his vision was wobbly with tears, his whole face burning hot? He knew with certainty that the moment he opened his mouth to speak he'd begin to cry and there'd be no way to stop, and his loss of composure would just confirm for Rin that he'd thought so highly of himself.

So he just nodded, keeping his head bent so that Rin wouldn't see his face.

“Alright then,” Rin said, still sounding aggravated. He stepped back and went to have his shower.

Nitori went to his locker, a fat tear spilling down his cheek. He got the locker door open and pretended he was searching for something while he quickly wiped his eyes, but he was really starting to cry, his mouth twisting down and his chest getting tight so his breathing kept hitching. He'd only meant to get himself together so he could pass the other boys on the way to the door and wouldn't look like he was crying, but now he was wishing he'd just fled right away.

He wiped his teary eyes quickly again and again, wiped his fingers and the back of his hand briskly on his t-shirt, sniffing, trying to look preoccupied still, pretending he was searching through his stuff inside the locker.

He had to get out of here quickly. The last thing he wanted was for Rin to see him like this. Supposing Rin was to come back right now for some reason—there'd be no way for Nitori to disguise the state he was in, he couldn't just stand there with his head in his locker.

Driven by this irrational fear, Nitori quickly wiped his face on the sleeve of his t-shirt and closed his locker door. He walked quickly, coming to the end of the row of lockers. Turning the corner, he could see the four boys in his peripheral vision, two standing getting changed, the other two sitting on the benches. They were silent as Nitori passed. He could feel their eyes on him as he pulled the door open. Then he was out in the cool air of the corridor.

He started running, and kept running until he reached the dormitories.

~*~

He shut himself in a bathroom stall of B block's communal bathroom.

He cried for a bit, pulling handfuls of tissue from the wall dispenser. A couple of times boys came in and Nitori breathed more quietly, sniffed with a tissue pressed against his nose to muffle the noise.

When he'd calmed down and his face was no longer blotchy red, he left for the room that he and Rin shared, feeling no small amount of dread that Rin would be there already, and he'd have to face him and pretend to be cheerful.

But the room was empty.

Nitori didn't linger there long. He changed his clothes and put his phone and his wallet into his messenger bag, put on sneakers that wouldn't hurt his feet if he wanted to walk a long way—though he had no thought in his head about walking anywhere particularly.

He hurried down the steps of the dormitory block and started across the quad just as the tower clock was chiming two o'clock.

~*~

The trains would be running at odd times, which Nitori had forgotten, so when he got to the station he had more than half an hour to wait.

He bought a ticket and chose the bench at the furthest end of the platform and idly watched the arrival times scrolling across the overhead electronic board. It wasn't pleasant, sitting there alone with his thoughts.

He remembered with a pang that he was supposed to be watching a movie with Rin that evening. He'd spent the last week wheedling and coaxing and pleading, trying to get Rin to agree to a movie night.

Finally on Saturday Rin had relented.

Nitori had lots of DVDs he'd brought with him from home and he was excited all Saturday night sorting through them trying to pick out something that Rin would enjoy. Then Rin had stayed late at the pool anyway, forgetting the movie, and then he'd hurt his shoulder swimming. He'd been in a foul mood when he got back.

"Tomorrow?" Nitori pleaded. "You shouldn't swim for a couple of days if you're hurt, Senpai. Please?"

Rin's movements had been a little stiff as he shrugged out of his sports jacket.

"If it'll get you to shut up about it…"

Nitori slouched lower on the bench, drawing his bag up and partly hiding his face behind it. Was Rin right about him? Couldn't he take a hint?

~*~

Nitori wandered without purpose through the shopping complex, peering in at the window displays, feeling a little foolish for journeying into town in the first place. He had no reason to be here, but at the same time he wasn't in any hurry to go back to school.

He ducked inside one of the big chain bookstores and browsed listlessly among the isles.

Continuing on, he stopped in front of a jewellery store and stared in at the trays of rings and glittering racks of necklaces.

His fingers worried at his gemstone on his wrist bracelet.

His mother had always worn a bracelet as a girl, when she was unpaired, and Nitori hadn't given it much thought when she'd bought him a bracelet for his own gem. But in truth, the style had been old-fashioned for omega even when his mother did it, and nowadays it was mostly children who tended wear their gem on a bracelet.

Nitori scrutinized the different types of necklace chains on display. After a further few seconds of indecision, he entered the store.

~*~

Sitting on the train journeying back, Nitori swept a quick glance around the quiet compartment before carefully unfastening the chain around his wrist. He slipped the gemstone free and held it briefly in the palm of his hand. It was warm from resting against his skin, tucked in the cuff of his jacket.

The stone itself was onyx, the engraved cameo bluish-white: a hare crouched alert with its ears up and listening. It was a small, finely-carved thing, only about the size of the nail on his little finger.

Nitori took the felt case with the silver necklace inside from out its paper bag. He drew the necklace out and fed one end through the gem's silver bail and he fastened the chain around his neck.

He tucked the bracelet his mother had given him into the felt case and slipped it into his bag and then he tucked his gem on the end of the necklace into the collar of his shirt and it was hidden. He passed his hand once, restlessly, over the place on his wrist where the gem had been, and then felt for the shape of the gem through his t-shirt, and finding it, he held it there for a while as he gazed out of the train window.

~*~

Rin was sitting at his desk working when Nitori got back.

He had his workbooks open tidily in front of him, his pen in his hand.

"You know they already rang the last bell for dinner?" he said, barely looking up.

"Ah." Nitori hitched his bag strap up over his head, set the bag down on his desk chair. "I lost track of time."

He started pulling off his jacket and he noticed his DVDs still spread out on the floor in one corner of the room, stacked haphazardly in different piles.

He looked away and hung his jacket up on the peg on back of the door.

The room was very quiet, but then Rin was usually quiet while he worked.

Nitori thought about saying something.

He turned and darted a quick glance at Rin. He was leaning forward slightly, his hand resting on an open page of his textbook as he read.

Nitori fidgeted for a second. Ordinarily he'd want to tell Rin where he'd been, ask Rin how the rest of his day had gone.

But Rin's anger in the changing room was still fresh in his mind. And Rin looked occupied. Being interrupted was exactly the kind of thing that annoyed him.

Nitori collected his wash bag from the dresser along with a towel and clothes and he slipped out of the room.

He met Mikoshiba on his way to the showers.

"Nitori," he greeted, planting his hand on Nitori's head as he passed, ruffling his hair a little.

Nitori didn't hurry in the shower stall. He glanced now and then at the gem where it hung from his neck on its new silver chain.

"If we're going to watch something, we should get on with it," Rin said as Nitori returned. "I've got an early start tomorrow."

Nitori paused with his wash bag in his hand, surprised.

"Oh!" He glanced again at the clutter of DVDs on the floor. Some of them had sticky-notes stuck to their covers, Nitori's handwriting scrawled hastily in bright colours. A notebook lay open in the midst of the mess, a whole double-page of silly lists made the previous evening, grouping likely candidates for movie night by genre and director.

Nitori felt a fresh rush of embarrassment being confronted with the mess. He remembered his excitement the day before, how he'd sat on the floor, chattering while Rin worked, rambling on about actors and favorite films he'd watched when he was little.

He looked at Rin again, sat at his desk, and realised Rin had probably been thinking the whole time that he just wanted to work, had probably been getting silently more and more frustrated while Nitori rambled on oblivious.

Rin didn't really want to watch a movie at all, he'd been saying as much all week, saying it would be a waste of time when he could be doing more important things. But Nitori hadn't stopped, so finally Rin had agreed just to get some peace.

"That's alright!" Nitori said, trying to sound light-hearted. He crouched down and closed his notebook up.

"Didn't you want to watch a movie?" Rin said, now looking back at him, arm hitched on the back of his chair, his eyebrow raised skeptically.

Nitori started to clear the DVDs away. "Uh…well, yes. But. I don't have the right one here."

"I thought you made a whole list," Rin said flatly.

Nitori hadn't thought Rin had noticed.

"Ah." He wiped a lock of damp hair from his forehead. "There wasn't anything quite right."

"Do you want me to choose one?" Rin said, sounding put upon now.

"No, no! Please don't worry." Nitori laughed. "It was just a dumb idea."

Rin glanced at the piles of DVDs with their sticky labels.

"I won't leave them all in a mess!" Nitori said hastily.

"Whatever, then," Rin muttered, turning back to his work.

Nitori finished putting the DVDs into their storage box (there being no room on his over-burdened shelves), then he searched his desk for his literature set text and put it up on his bed. He combed his hair, plugged his phone in to charge, then started up the ladder to his bunk.

"Are you going to bed already?" Rin said.

"I have to read another chapter for tomorrow," Nitori said, reaching the top. He held up the book for Rin to see.

"I think there used to be a desk somewhere under there," Rin said dryly, nodding to indicate Nitori's messy side of the room.

"It's cold." Nitori arranged his blanket and pillows, making a nest for himself.

"And that way you can fall asleep as soon as the book gets boring," Rin said. "Just don't start crying tomorrow when you haven't read it."

Nitori faltered for a moment, his thoughts flashing to his tears in the changing room, his chest seizing tight for a second. He burrowed under his duvet, hiding himself away, his book propped open on his pillow.

They were quiet then for some time, Rin working at his notes, Nitori reading.

After a while, Rin's desk chair squeaked.

Nitori continued reading. He was just starting to get a rhythm going where the complicated and drawn-out passages of the book weren't frustrating him.

"Oi."

Nitori lowered the book and lifted his head.

Rin was standing near the bed, his head turned aside.

"You're not sulking about before, are you?" he said.

Nitori sat up, the duvet falling off his shoulders.

"No."

"Well you take too many liberties," Rin said, still looking aside. "You were getting on my nerves."

Nitori fiddled with the corner of his book. He bowed his head carefully.

"Matsuoka-senpai. I've – I've been thinking about what you said…"

"Really," Rin said. "I doubt you were even paying attention."

"I was!" Nitori said ardently, jerking his head up.

"Fine, fine." Rin made a small gesture with his hand to dismiss the whole thing. "You should spend more time thinking about your work."

He went back to his desk.

Nitori lay back down, but he was keenly dissatisfied. Rin hadn't taken him seriously. He thought Nitori meant to carry on the way he'd been going, imposing himself on Rin all the time, being demanding, being willful.

_“You act like you're just waiting for me to ask for your gem. Is that what you think's going to happen?”_

Nitori cringed, pulling the duvet closer about him, staring ahead at the wall.

Things were going to change.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Nitori's alarm went off the next morning, Rin had already been for his jog and showered. He had a free first period on Mondays, so he was sitting at his desk once again working as Nitori climbed down from bed.

Teeth brushed, hair combed, uniform on, bag over his shoulder, Nitori felt a little more alert and ready for the day.

He'd set his alarm early so he'd have plenty of time for breakfast in the canteen. Rin sometimes joined him on these mornings, but Nitori usually had to ask a couple of times before he'd agree.

Nitori stood by the door having a silent debate with himself. Looking over his shoulder, he considered Rin, who was busy writing.

Nitori had slipped into the habit of checking in with Rin at intervals when they were together, making some kind of informal subservience gesture to induce a response from the alpha—it was a part of their routine, a small exchange that was fairly typical behaviour for two wolves living in such close proximity.

_"Stop hanging on me all the time. You're not some little cub anymore, Nitori."_

But the more Nitori thought about it, the more it seemed obvious to him that he'd been taking things too far, behaving inappropriately. Rather than waiting for Rin to perform dominance gestures when he felt like it, Nitori was almost always the one to initiate things, clamoring for acknowledgment from Rin like a child, taking every opportunity to try and provoke a response—when saying hello or goodbye, goodnight or good morning, please or thank you, in the middle of a conversation, any time he sensed a major shift in Rin's mood… No wonder Rin found Nitori annoying. That kind of over-effusiveness with wolf gestures was the kind of thing that cubs were known for.

"Ah…well, have a good day, Matsuoka-senpai!" Nitori called, giving a small wave from the door.

Rin made a vague noise in reply, his attention on his work.

Nitori couldn't help but feel disappointed as he slipped out of the door. 

It would probably take a couple of weeks for Rin to notice that Nitori was trying to conduct himself in a better way. 

Nitori frowned as he made his way down the corridor, sternly reminding himself that the whole point of this was to give Rin his space. It wouldn’t be easy at first, but he had to persevere.

~*~

Nitori went straight to the library after his last class. He checked out some books on his reading list, too many books as it turned out. He struggled down the library steps balancing a stack of them.

He was craning to look where he was going when he glimpsed a flash of red hair in the distance.

Rin was reading the notice boards outside the sports centre, his kit bag across his shoulder, his hair still damp from the pool. He seemed to feel Nitori's stare. He looked round, his eyes landing on Nitori at once as if he'd already known he was there.

"Matsuoka-senpai!" Nitori greeted him a little breathlessly.

"Do you think you got enough books?" Rin said. "Where do you plan to put all of those?"

"There's room on my desk!"

"Sure." Rin stepped closer to him as a group of students passed by. "Are you coming?" he said, turning on the path in the direction of the dormitories.

"I have to go pick up my assignment," Nitori said.

Rin nodded. Nitori opened his mouth to ask him along, but quickly shut it again as he realised he was only inviting Rin because he wanted his company. Rin most likely had better things to do.

Rin watched him with a bland look.

"I'll see you in a bit then," Nitori said. 

He went and collected his paper from the teacher's pigeonhole outside the staffroom. He took several seconds to stare at the grade in amazement – he’d done much better than he'd expected.

Arriving back at the dorms, he trudged up the stairs and down the corridor to his and Rin’s room. He crouched awkwardly, his bag strap sliding off his shoulder down his elbow, his bag bumping against the door as he tried to reach the handle.

The door swung open and Rin stood holding it for Nitori to come in.

"You know you could have just asked me to bring your books up for you."

"That's okay, Matsuoka-senpai!" Nitori nudged a space clear on the edge of his desk and set the books down.

He turned and got a proper look at Rin and immediately noticed he was wearing an elastic sports bandage around his neck and shoulder, the edge of it visible under the collar of his t-shirt.

"Senpai! Are you alright?"

"It's fine, don't start on me," Rin said harshly.

Nitori fell silent. He looked down for a couple of seconds, then he pulled out his desk chair and sat, trying not to look dejected.

He made a half-hearted start at tidying a bigger space to work at, and Rin was quiet behind him.

After a while, Rin went to his desk to get something. 

"So did you get your assignment back?" he said. 

Nitori looked up in surprise. He nodded.

"And?" Rin said.

"I did alright."

Rin held out his hand.

A little confused, Nitori pulled the paper out from between the books and gave it to Rin.

Rin's eyes scanned the grade, the teacher's comments, his expression remaining somewhat forbidding. He made a low, approving noise in his throat and looked up, handing the paper back to Nitori.

"You did well."

~*~

Nitori went for a run on his own around the track field the next evening.

It felt good to set his own pace and get lost in the rhythm of his breathing, the steady thump of his feet. He did a few circuits, slowed to a walk for a bit, then picked up the pace again for a couple more laps.

He ran fairly regularly with Rin, so he wasn't starting from nothing. Rin's regime was much more punishing though, so he probably wasn't pushing himself as much. 

He ran until he was sweating and his chest burned with each rattling breath, his legs shaky as he came to a halt and did some stretches to warm down.

It was starting to get dark, the trees around the back of the school turning shadowy blue, the running track lit up starkly.

Nitori drank from his water bottle, panting between swallows. He lent forward for a bit with his hands on his knees to catch his breath, then he straightened and went and collected his bag from the steps.

He'd brought his things with him to shower, as there was a changing room between the track field and the soccer pitches. He'd decided to see how many people were around, and if it was too crowded he'd wait until he got back to the dormitories.

Easing the changing room door open and stepping into the entry, Nitori knew immediately that he wouldn't be sticking around. Half of the soccer club were in there getting changed.

"Excuse me," a voice said from behind Nitori, and Nitori stepped quickly out of the way as an alpha passed him, captain's armband in one hand, florescent bibs over his arm.

"Hurry it up, fellahs! Let's go, let's go!" he yelled over the hubbub.

Nitori retreated to the door, was about to slip outside once more, but as he drew the door open, several boys came through, in high spirits cracking jokes.

"Hey, did an omega join the team?" one of them said loudly as he saw Nitori. He grinned and made a show of sniffing the air as he passed him.

"You guys are rude letting the omega hold the door," another piped up. He turned and planted his hand on the door, stretching his arm above Nitori's head, as if to emphasize the difference in height between them. "There you go!"

His friends guffawed, and Nitori tucked his chin down, his shoulders drawn up, making himself small, not at all liking their jostling closeness.

"Smell that sweat," one of the older boys called, and they all laughed. Nitori pressed back against the wall, feeling the sweat from his run all over him, making his clothes clammy, knowing they could all smell him, he wanted to get out—

"Oi!" The captain appeared suddenly. "Quit dicking around."

The boys moved on hastily, clearing out of the entryway, throwing looks back over their shoulders as they went.

"You okay?" the captain said, giving Nitori space to come out.

Nitori bobbed his head, keeping his eyes down, too embarrassed to do much else, and darted out through the open door, hurrying quickly down the path.

~*~

"Going for a run," Rin announced, straightening up from tying his sneakers.

"Okay, Senpai," Nitori said. He lent back in his chair, stretching gently, fighting off a yawn. He'd been trying to take notes from a chapter of one of his library books, but so far he'd copied out eight paragraphs more or less in their entirety. He knew that he wasn't the best at succinct note-taking—but surely it was better to have all of the information rather than miss anything important out.

Rin was standing by the door, waiting.

"Well?" he said.

For a long time now it had been Nitori's habit to invite himself along on Rin's evening runs when he could, even when Rin passed remarks that made it pretty clear he wanted to train on his own.

"I already went for a run," Nitori said. He'd scrubbed his skin raw in the shower when he'd gotten back, so he was somewhat pleased that Rin wasn't able to tell he'd already exercised from his scent.

Rin stared at him for a moment.

"Fine."

He let himself out the door without further comment.

~*~

It was swim practice the next day.

Nitori was at his locker, mopping at his wet hair with his towel, his goggles still around his neck. He sensed someone pause as they were walking behind him, and a moment later a voice said,

"Ah, so it is you."

Nitori turned, blinking in surprise, and saw that it was the captain who'd intervened to help him the day before.

"I thought I recognised you," the older boy said.

Nitori put his towel around his shoulders, wiping a drip of water from his chin shyly.

"Hello."

"Sorry about those knuckleheads yesterday, they have poorly-developed social skills."

"That's alright," Nitori said. He was wondering why the captain of the soccer team was here, standing in the pool changing rooms.

"You're on the swim team?" the captain said, then he clicked his tongue and gestured to Nitori, in his swim briefs. "Dumb question. Oh—" He bowed his head. "Sorry. I'm Shimada Minoru, by the way. Now I'm being rude."

Nitori bowed and returned the introduction.

"You're a first year, aren't you?" Shimada said.

Nitori was about to answer when suddenly a damp towel hit Shimada in the chest. He raised his arm reflexively to catch it as it fell, and a second later Rin was walking past him.

"What's this?" Shimada said, holding out the towel.

Rin glanced at him idly as he opened his locker.

"Oh," he said. "My mistake. You look a lot like the guy who collects the towels."

There was a beat of silence, and it felt to Nitori as if the temperature had just plummeted.

Rin was searching through his locker, apparently oblivious to the terrible atmosphere he'd just created.

Nitori looked between the two alphas nervously.

Shimada tossed the towel away onto one of the benches with an easy motion of his arm. He smiled thinly, his eyes fixed on Rin, who still had his back to him.

"No offense intended," he said lightly. "I didn't know the cub was yours."

"He's not," Rin said.

"Oi, Shimada!" There came a slap of flip-flops as Mikoshiba sauntered towards them, a clipboard under his arm. "Don't start making friends with Matsuoka or you'll be here all day." 

Rin shut his locker and moved off without a backwards glance.

"It's that cuddly personality of his," Mikoshiba said. "Eh, Nitori?" He slanted Nitori a look like they were sharing the joke.

Shimada didn't smile. He was staring after Rin.

"Come on." Mikoshiba nudged Shimada's shoulder with his clipboard. "I found the timetable you wanted."

"Sure." Shimada broke his gaze away as Mikoshiba made to lead the way to the office. His eyes settled on Nitori. "Sorry about that."

"No, no, it's fine." Nitori smiled awkwardly, not sure what else to do.

Shimada nodded. "Well. See you around."

~*~

The school wind band were having a bake sale in the cafeteria the next day and Nitori was helping his friend Kaede get the stall set up.

Kaede, a second-year euphonium player, wasn't coping well with the pressures of organising the sale, and he'd forgotten a tray of butterfly cakes as well as the banner that was supposed to hang above the stall in his dorm room.

So Nitori was hurrying along as quickly as he could, carrying the tray of cakes with particular care, the banner wrapped up and held snug under his arm.

He was concentrating on the path in front of him and watching out for anyone coming, alert to any possible hazard, so he didn't immediately notice that someone was calling his name.

There was a chain-link fence separating the field from the gravel walkway which Nitori was following, and he'd only been vaguely aware of the movement and activity out on the pitch. Now he could see there was a group of boys who’d been playing soccer, and the person who had called to him was Shimada, who was now jogging over to the fence, chasing down an errant ball.

“You again,” Shimada said, bending to scoop up the ball, tucking it under his arm as he straightened. “Where are you going with those?”

“The band's having a cake sale,” Nitori said, then remembering he ought to do his bit for Kaede, he added stoutly, “You can get five cakes for four hundred yen.”

“Is that right?” Shimada hooked his fingers through the chain-link, wiped his damp forehead against the crook of his arm.

“There's lots of different things," Nitori said, "Madeleines, macaroons. I like the cupcakes best. Not that I've tried everything. Just a couple, and I paid for them, but Kaede said I could only have two.”

“Who's that?”

“Kaede's running the bake sale.”

“Are you in wind band?”

“Oh, no. I just swim.”

“Oi, Captain!” one of the players out on the field called, waving his arm. “It’s no good delaying defeat!”

The others joined in jeering and calling. Shimada waved them off. He turned back to Nitori.

“You've got paint on you,” he said.

Nitori looked at his arm. The sun through the leaves above made bright dappled light on his skin. A streak of green paint had dried on his inner-arm. There was more on his school shirt.

“Oh no!” Nitori held the cake tray up a little higher, trying to look without dropping the banner. “I thought the writing had dried! Do you think I’ve ruined it?”

There came more calls from the players stood with their hands on their hips, and Shimada flashed Nitori a smile as he drew back.

“We'll come buy some cakes later.”

“Really?” Nitori said, but Shimada was already jogging back to rejoin the game, neatly guiding the ball in front of his feet.

~*~

Nitori had lost his planner.

He remembered taking it out of his bag when he got back to the dorm room, but now it was nowhere to be seen.

“Your bed,” Rin said.

“No, I haven’t been up there yet, it wouldn’t be up there—” Nitori was searching through the stacks of books and notepads and ring binders on his desk. 

“Your bag.”

“I looked already,” Nitori said, but he bent and picked up his satchel and tipped it upside-down, dumping its contents out onto the floor.

“This wouldn’t happen so often if you—”

“I know!” Nitori wailed miserably, kneeling down to sift through the mess.

Rin put the last mouthful of the cake sale cupcake Nitori had brought him into his mouth and turned back to his laptop, chewing.

They went down to dinner together later, though Rin brought his copy of an Olympic champion’s autobiography and he sat reading it while he ate, leaving Nitori to make conversation with an omega seated opposite.

Rin found the planner just before bed. He’d pulled Nitori’s desk out a little way from the wall and checked behind it and sure enough the planner had fallen down between the desk and the wall. Rin handed it to Nitori and nudged the desk back into place.

“Ah! Senpai, thank you!” Nitori clutched the planner to his chest.

“Wasn’t exactly hard,” Rin muttered, but he brushed the back of his knuckles lightly under Nitori’s jaw before turning to get changed for bed.

Nitori sat at his desk for a bit, feeling the place where Rin had touched his face. It felt like it had been many days since Rin had touched him in the way that wolves touched each other. He felt a bubble of pleasure swell in his chest as he opened his planner to write.

~*~

“You’d make a good midfielder,” Shimada said, dropping a marker cone onto the grass. “All that running, you’ve got endurance.”

Nitori crouched by his sports bag, taking his time about pulling out his water bottle, feeling bashful. He was still winded from his laps around the track. He ought to be doing his warm down stretches, but with Shimada there he felt shy.

The older boy had come out onto the field, already dressed for practice, a big kit bag over his shoulder, and he’d started setting out the training equipment while Nitori did his final lap, the waning light dropping away through the trees.

Shimada checked his watch.

“Vice-captain’s late,” he sighed. “Reliable as ever.” He looked over at Nitori. “Want me to walk you back?”

The offer caught Nitori off-guard.

“Oh, you don’t have to—” He broke off to swallow, trying to master his breathing, not wanting to appear as wrung out as he felt right after a run.

“That’s alright,” Shimada said.

Nitori gathered up his bag and Shimada turned as Nitori reached him and they fell into step together, heading off the field just as the floodlights were coming on.

They talked about running and fitness and Shimada asked Nitori about swimming, which he had much respect for.

“I need to get a lot better or else I’m not going to be allowed to compete,” Nitori admitted.

“It’s a lot different from training as a team,” Shimada said. “You can only rely on yourself.”

They came round the corner of the library, passing other students on the steps, and Nitori shivered, the cooled sweat on his skin making the brisk wind feel worse than it was.

“It’s cold tonight,” Shimada said.

“Yes!”

Shimada caught the zip of his track jacket under his chin and took it down swiftly, shrugging the jacket off before Nitori could properly protest.

“No, please, that’s—”

“It’s no trouble. Here.” Shimada held the jacket out to him as they went down the steps.

“You need it!” Nitori said.

“I’m going to be running around in a minute,” Shimada laughed. “Go on.”

Nitori eyed the jacket, aware that, in more formal situations, this kind of gesture between wolves meant something a little different to what it meant between two people who were not wolves.

“You look cold. Please.” Shimada halted at the bottom of the steps, waiting for Nitori to come down the last two steps, and then he handed Nitori the jacket, which was still warm. Nitori bowed his head and said thank you, and then put his bag down so that he could pull the jacket on.

“You can hold onto it,” Shimada said when they’d reached the dormitories.

“No, I couldn’t!” Nitori was already pulling the jacket off. He could barely meet Shimada’s eye, knowing how strongly the jacket would smell to a wolf’s nose because he’d been sweating, but too embarrassed to mention it, even to apologise.

“Maybe I’ll run with you tomorrow,” Shimada said, folding the jacket over his arm. “Would that be alright? Supposing I can keep up.”

Nitori wasn’t sure if he was being teased a little.

“I’ll be too slow for you,” he mumbled.

Shimada just laughed. He had a nice laugh.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Nitori climbed the stairs to the second floor.

He could hear voices in conversation and as he reached the landing he saw Shoji was leaning in the doorway of the room opposite his and Rin's.

Shoji was Mikoshiba's roommate, a fast, wiry boy, a beta.

"Yo, Nitori," he called, twisting lazily against the doorjamb. "Where have you been, then? I saw Matsuoka at the pool today without his little timekeeper. I thought, it's not like Nitori to neglect his duties—" He was half-laughing, and drew breath to say more, but as Nitori came closer, his expression changed and he straightened up, arms falling to his sides. "Oi oi, what's this! Who do you smell of?"

"Nobody," Nitori said, quickening his step, but Shoji darted out in front of him, blocking his way, sniffing at him obviously and rudely.

"Here’s a mystery!" he laughed, having fun with sidestepping as Nitori sidestepped. "Who’s your boyfriend, Nitori?"

"Some of us are trying to work," Mikoshiba grumbled, appearing at the doorway. "What's all the noise?"

"Smell that! Nitori's got some alpha's scent all over him!" Shoji crowed.

Nitori could feel his face growing redder and redder with each passing second.

"It's not like that—" he stammered, clutching the strap of his bag tightly.

"He's blushing! Go on, who's your admirer, stop being so secretive!"

"Shoji," Mikoshiba said sharply. "Leave him be."

"Do you know who it is, Mikoshiba? You never said anything–"

Unable to bear the scrutiny a moment longer, Nitori made another attempt to get past Shoji. The beta darted into his path again and Nitori had to stop clumsily to keep them from colliding.

Mikoshiba was behind Nitori all at once. He reached past Nitori and grabbed Shoji by the collar of his shirt, hauling him easily aside.

“We’re just goofing around!” Shoji griped, shoving Mikoshiba’s hand off.

Mikoshiba grunted, and somewhere under the human noise there was a soft wolfish growl. “Stop making trouble.” 

A small rebuke, but enough to make Shoji hold up his hands and duck his head in a self-pitying way.

“Geez, I can’t have any fun!” He shoved his hands into his pockets and sidled off down the corridor.

Nitori looked back at Mikoshiba. 

“Thank you,” Nitori said.

Mikoshiba nodded.

If Shoji had been able to detect an alpha’s scent, there was no doubt Mikoshiba could as well. 

Mikoshiba’s face gave nothing away, but given that he knew Shimada, he could surely recognise the scent.

“I just borrowed a jacket,” Nitori said hurriedly. “It wasn’t–”

“Don’t worry about Shoji,” Mikoshiba said.

“Okay.” Nitori shifted his weight between his feet awkwardly. He felt too flustered to try to explain things further, and if any rumour got started at least it would be too silly to be believable.

When he’d parted ways with Shimada and stepped into the dormitory, he’d only been thinking about getting to the showers. He hadn’t expected anyone to take the time to smell him. Why had Shoji jumped on it so quickly and tried to twist it into something it wasn’t? Made a joke of it, as if an alpha like Shimada would be interested in Nitori?

 _To embarrass me,_ he thought with some heat. ‘Little timekeeper’, Shoji had called him.

Mikoshiba looked like he was about to say something else, but Nitori just wanted to get away and shower and not stand there any longer smelling of someone else. He bobbed a quick bow and then turned and let himself into his and Rin’s room.

He was still thinking bitter thoughts about Shoji as he threw his bag down, so he was scarcely aware of Rin snapping shut the book he’d been reading at his desk.

“Oi, where the hell were you?”

Nitori had been opening the wardrobe to get a towel. He looked over at Rin in confusion.

“I waited an hour for you,” Rin said, pushing to his feet. “That’s time I could have been in the pool.”

“Waited for me?”

“Why weren’t you answering your phone?” Rin came towards him. He was barefoot, wearing loose navy sweats and a white vest. “You could have sent me a text if you knew you weren’t going to get back in time.”

His eyes swept over Nitori, taking in his running clothes, his disheveled hair.

“What, you decided to go for a run instead of–”

Rin had come close enough to Nitori to smell him and the change that came over his demeanor with instantaneous. He went rigid, his eyes flashing, fixed on Nitori, staring at him like Nitori had grown another head.

Nitori only had time to yelp in alarm as Rin’s hand shot out and latched onto his arm.

“Who–” Rin began, his nostrils flared as he drew shallow breaths, his head bent. He jerked his head up a moment later and his eyes locked with Nitori’s. He began to growl. Nitori stood frozen like a deer in headlights. Rin’s growl made his flesh prickle, his heart start to race.

Rin took a step forward and Nitori took a step back, he had to or else Rin would have stepped on his feet, and as it was Rin’s knee bumped into his leg. Nitori stumbled back, Rin still holding onto his forearm between them, and Nitori couldn’t tear his eyes away from Rin’s even to look behind him. His back hit the wardrobe.

“Matsuoka-senpai–” Nitori said in a wobbly voice. He didn’t know why Rin was growling in that way, he’d never used such a growl with Nitori before, and Nitori’s wolf sprang forward in response to the dramatic shift in atmosphere, seizing control in that stressful instant. Following the wolf’s instinct, Nitori made himself small against the wardrobe door and tucked his head down, a trembling whine escaping him, everything signally non-confrontation.

Uselessly, Nitori found himself reaching for the bond – the link that he’d tethered himself to Rin with, the bond that only wolves could make. But it wasn’t like touching the bond would do any good – there was no mutual connection. A bond that wasn’t reciprocal was about as much use as a phone with no connection. The bond of friendship that Nitori had been harboring for Rin was an embarrassment, a childish parody of the real thing. 

Rin released Nitori’s arm abruptly and his growling stopped.

He stepped back a couple steps, then a couple more. 

“Why do you stink like that?” he said roughly. 

“I – I–” Nitori’s eyes were stinging, he wished he didn’t cry so easily, but he’d never been good at wolf confrontations. In his family people didn’t even yell much, and he’d only even been growled at by alphas in the family a few times when he was little, and never with any serious sentiment behind it.

“Is he bugging you?” Rin said. “That prick? Has he been following you around?”

“W-What?” Nitori shook his head. “No, no. I just– Shimada-senpai, I borrowed his jacket. I bumped into him and he let me wear his jacket because it’s cold.”

Rin was silent for long enough that Nitori dared to look up. 

Rin had been watching him, but as Nitori lifted his eyes, he turned his head away. He made a restless movement like he was going to go to the door and then aborted it. He moved in the opposite direction, back over to his desk. When he got there he turned around and came back again, stopping in the same place he’d been before, facing Nitori.

“Well. I don’t give a shit what you do. I just– If you’re not going to show up to train, you could at least – text or tell me or something–” Rin folded his arms quickly across his chest. “I was sitting here for an hour, fucking waiting, so…”

“I don’t understand,” Nitori said. “Matsuoka-senpai– Why were you waiting for me?”

Rin looked at him like he was stupid. “So we could swim? Swimming? Like we do every day?”

“But…” Nitori didn’t know what to say. 

It was true that most days after final period Nitori rushed back to the dorm room to wait for Rin so that they could go swimming together – or to put it more accurately, they walked from the dorm room down to the sports centre together at the same time. Rin was never so remote and single-minded as when he was in the water, he always seemed shut off to everything else around him. 

Nitori had just assumed Rin would go on his own when he saw Nitori wasn’t there. He’d scarcely even believed Rin was aware they had a ritual at all.

“If you don’t want to train anymore, that’s fine,” Rin said.

“I do!” Nitori’s earnest bewilderment had him coming away from the wardrobe, moving closer to Rin. “I didn’t know you were waiting for me–”

“You can’t just stop and start, if you’re committed to improving your time then you should take it seriously. I mean you’re the one who wanted to go running, you wouldn’t stop bugging me about it. It’s not for my benefit. I only let you come along because you kept saying you wanted to–”

“I do!” Nitori cried, still breathless and a little tearful, confused by the erratic line of Rin’s thoughts. Why did he think Nitori didn’t care about training when he could see he’d just been for a run?

“It’s screwing with my routine, it throws everything else off–” Rin was saying, and he was the one stepping back from Nitori now. “There’s supposed to be regularity, if the training’s going to work, you can’t be there and then not be there–”

“You said you wanted to train on your own!” Nitori broke in. “I thought you didn’t want me to–”

Rin ploughed on like he didn’t hear, “I’m supposed to be concentrating on my own shit, not wasting time waiting around for you. You slow me down, all the time. So great, if you want to quit, go ahead and quit–”

“I don’t!” 

“–join the soccer team with your boyfriend, you know, do whatever the hell you want–”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Nitori’s voice cracked, his vision gone shimmery with tears. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“Then where’s your gem gone?” Rin said loudly.

Nitori’s hands fumbled roughly with the neck of his t-shirt and he yanked the necklace chain up. “Here!” 

It was almost like Nitori was watching himself from a corner of his mind, stunned at his own behaviour, amazed to find it was his own shaky tearful voice that had angrily spoken, his own hands that had fished the necklace out for Rin to see.

Rin looked a little surprised as well.

“What happened to your bracelet?” he said, some of the heat gone out of his voice. 

Nitori turned away, wiping his eyes and his cheeks. “It looked stupid.” He stuffed the gem and the necklace back inside the neck of his t-shirt.

“It’s just old fashioned…” Rin said in a sort of a mumble.

“You said it looked childish.”

“Since when do you listen to what I say?” Rin had one hand in his pocket, his other hand scratching the back of his head.

Nitori shrugged. He plucked at the front of his t-shirt and used it to wipe his eyes, sniffing like he had a cold. He didn’t want to look at Rin, didn’t want Rin to see his face blotchy with crying. 

The last minute had been like nothing that had ever happened before, it had almost been like – an argument. But they’d never had one of those in all the time they’d been sharing a room.

Nitori wasn’t even sure what the argument had even been about.

“You don’t have to get so upset,” Rin said.

Nitori wiped his face.

“I didn’t mean to growl, before,” Rin added after a pause.

Nitori lifted his shoulder to show it wasn’t a big deal.

“Sorry I wrecked your routine,” he said, still holding his t-shirt against his mouth, his voice muffled and subdued.

“You didn’t.” Rin scuffed his foot against the carpet. “Forget about it.” 

Nitori felt miserable, wrung out. His aim had been to give Rin some space, to stop getting in the way. But going about it in the way that he had, he’d still somehow managed to disrupt Rin’s important training.

“You’re right,” Nitori said. He looked at Rin’s bare feet. “I do slow you down all the time.” 

“You take things too seriously,” Rin said uneasily.

It was dispiriting to think of not tagging along with Rin on a run ever again, not being there to keep time for him while he swam, or to swim in the lane alongside him, even if he was only kidding himself that Rin even noticed him there, or found Nitori’s company as encouraging as Nitori found Rin’s.

When he thought about it like that, Nitori could understand why Rin was always saying he’d rather train alone. He was in another league altogether. There was only one person Rin should have been training with, and that was Nanase Haruka. They were true equals.

“I promise I won’t get in your way from now on, Senpai,” Nitori said. He let his shirt collar slip down and he lifted his eyes and met Rin’s, showing him he was serious. “You were always try to tell me. I just didn't want to listen.”

“What?”

“I'm not at the same level as you. You only let me train with you because I kept pushing. But having me there, it doesn’t help you, it was only for me–”

“You’re just upset because I shouted at you,” Rin said, taking a step forward. “I said I was sorry–”

“I don't want to hold you back anymore.” Nitori kept his eyes locked with Rin’s. “It’s time I trained on my own.”

Rin shook his head. “Fine. Do what you want, I’m not going to argue with you. You’re the one who asked for help to begin with. If you don’t want it, that’s fine. And you’re right, anyway, I’ll get more done if I’m working on my own. I don’t need to be worrying about you keeping up.” He was quiet for a second, then he grimaced and looked away. “I don’t mean it like that.”

“No, I understand,” Nitori said. He fidgeted for a moment. There was nothing more to say. “Well. I’ll go shower.”

“Right.”

Nitori got his stuff together. Rin watched him with his hands in his pockets. He stepped out of the way as Nitori went to the door.

“Nitori.”

Nitori turned back. “Yes?”

Rin scowled. “Nothing.” He went back over to his desk.

Nitori went to shower.

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

Shimada stood waiting at the bend of the track. He jogged out onto the lane as Nitori neared and fell in alongside him.

“I thought maybe I’d missed you,” he said, with a look sideways and a grin. “Still okay if I join you?”

“Of course!” Nitori returned his gaze briefly before fixing his attention ahead again. It would be embarrassing to trip and fall right then.

“I haven’t seen you running here before the last couple of weeks,” Shimada said. “Felt like a change?”

Nitori shook his head. “I don’t know. I need to run more,” he laughed, a little breathless, sheepish.

Their footfalls thumped in time together. Shimada was keeping pace effortlessly, but then Nitori had expected this would hardly challenge someone who did a sport with so much running.

“We can go faster?” he said, turning his head.

“This is good,” Shimada said easily. “Is that your hoodie?”

Nitori blinked in confusion at the question, then he remembered. He was wearing his swim team hoodie. That evening he’d been looking for it everywhere and finally Rin had found it for him. Somehow it had gotten mixed in with Rin’s things.

 _“You leave your laundry all over the place,”_ Rin had griped as he handed it over.

“Just it smells like someone else,” Shimada said.

“Mn.” Nitori nodded. “Matsuoka-senpai. He’s my roommate. You met him. Well, sort of.”

They kept running for a bit in silence, then Shimada huffed a breath of laughter.

“Does he wear your clothes a lot?”

“No!” Nitori laughed. “I’m not a very tidy person so – our stuff gets mixed up sometimes.”

Shimada just smiled and looked ahead down the track.

Nitori was panting a bit, but he endeavored to keep his voice steady as he went on,

“Matsuoka-senpai says I have too much stuff – but I think my side of the room must be smaller. A room needs stuff in it or – it doesn’t feel welcoming!” Nitori paused to pull a couple of breaths before adding, “Maybe I brought too much stuff – but you never know when you might need something!”

That made Shimada laugh again.

“I know what you mean, you don’t want to see my room. Have you ever been caught out with room inspections?”

Nitori shook his head.

“You can’t be that bad then,” Shimada said. “So you room with an alpha, that’s a little unusual.”

“Mn.”

“Mikoshiba says Matsuoka’s quite a character. I hear he’s pretty ambitious.”

“Oh yes!” Nitori’s pace faltered as he turned the top half of his body towards Shimada, enthusing, “Matsuoka-senpai’s going to be an Olympian!”

“Really.” Shimada slowed slightly to match Nitori.

Nitori nodded. “He trains harder than anybody else. Nobody’s as dedicated as Matsuoka-senpai! He’s the best swimmer on the team. He’s going to beat everyone at Regionals. He trained in Australia. I saw him compete with his team in elementary school – I always remembered him. He’s a natural swimmer. He was always the best, even back then. For some people, they have a natural gift!”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“Don’t you think–” Nitori said, feeling emboldened, “for some people – they were made to do a certain thing? Like fate?”

“You think the same as my girlfriend,” Shimada said, quirking his eyebrow like he was teasing Nitori. “She wants to be a singer.”

“Oh! You have a girlfriend? What’s her name?”

Somehow they’d slowed to such an extent they were now walking. It had starting to spit rain.

“Yuka,” Shimada said. “She goes to school in Kumamoto.”

“So far away,” Nitori said.

“Yeah. It sucks.” Shimada wiped at the drizzle on his face. “What about you?”

Nitori looked at him blankly.

“Girlfriend?” Shimada said. “Boyfriend?”

Nitori laughed, instantly flustered. “Oh, no, no – I’m– Nobody, there’s no one.”

“Ah. Is your family pretty traditional?”

“N-No, not really...”

“They're not making you wait until you come out?” Shimada asked lightly.

He was talking about the tradition of coming out ceremonies for omegas entering society. Nitori’s mother had been presented when she was a girl, at the customary time, after her second heat. When Nitori had been playing in his parents' bedroom once when he was little and he'd found an old photograph of his mother in their chest of drawers. The photo had been taken on the day of her ceremony. She was standing under a cherry blossom with her father stood behind her, she looked almost unrecognisable, dwarfed under the beautiful many-layered junihitoe, her hair arranged grandly in the Nihongami style.

“I - I don’t think so,” Nitori stammered. His parents had never mentioned presenting him. They’d sent him to Samezuka Academy, a progressive school where only a few omegas from old families followed those old traditions. He had omega friends who were dating people and they hadn’t had their second heats yet, they didn’t care about the old customs, ornate formal clothing, strict rules of propriety, omegas kept apart until they came of age.

“Lucky you,” Shimada said. “My parents don’t let my sister date.” He held out his hand, feeling the rain. “Do you want to try go a few more before this gets worse?”

Nitori nodded. They took off again.

~*~

“My parents don’t exactly approve of me seeing Yuka.”

“Why not?”

Shimada took a drink of water. He wiped his mouth and leaned back comfortably on the bench, straightening out his leg in front of him, looking ahead at the rain. It had started pouring just as they’d finished and so they rested in the dugout with the rain pattering on the plastic roof and waited to see if it would clear.

“She’s not wolf,” Shimada said. “My parents, they’re stuck in the past. They don’t like me wasting time with a non-wolf when they think I should be...thinking about things more long-term, I guess.” He looked down at his water bottle, picking at the faded lettering. “They wouldn’t even come out and meet Yuka when I brought her round.”

“That’s not fair,” Nitori said, his passion up. Looking at Shimada’s handsome face in profile, he saw him like he was Romeo, the noble lover.

Shimada shrugged. “We see each other when we can. It’s never been easy because we go to school so far apart.”

Nitori made a quiet noise in sympathy.

“I’m going home to stay the weekend pretty soon, hopefully I’ll see her then.” Shimada bent forward, peering up at the water dribbling off the lip of the roof. “This looks like it’s easing off.”

Shimada walked Nitori back to the dorms again and they said their goodbyes outside.

The bedroom was empty. Rin would probably be at the pool until late.

It was only as he pulled his hoodie off over his head that Nitori noticed how much it smelled like Rin. Over the ordinary detergent smell, Rin’s scent was easily discernable. Nitori hadn’t even noticed, he was so used to Rin’s scent in the background. The hoodie must have sat in Rin’s drawer with some clothing he’d already worn, and picked up his scent that way.

Nitori held the damp hoodie to his face and inhaled. The smell of his sweat and Rin’s scent made him blush. He stuffed the hoodie hastily into the clothes hamper to be washed.

~*~

Nitori didn’t see Rin that night, nor the next morning. His bed was tidily made as always so Nitori could even have believed he’d spent the whole night swimming.

It was Sunday. Nitori slept in late and then had trouble creating much momentum for the day. He had a lot of homework to do for the coming week and he needed to get to the library.

Procrastinating, he spent a couple of hours online, replying to an email from a friend back home, then browsed websites for a gift for his mother, whose birthday was coming up.

By lunchtime Rin still hadn’t shown up as Nitori had been hoping, and unconsciously expecting. No longer having any excuse to hang around, Nitori got his work together and set off for the library, only stopping to pick up a sandwich from the canteen on the way.

He found a secluded spot on the second floor, set up camp, and finally got down to some work.

~*~

Six-thirty he was back, letting himself into the room, dropping his bag down with a sigh. The light was off so Nitori thought he was alone.

There was a figure lying on the lower bunk. Nitori jumped, relaxing as he saw it was indeed Rin. He was sprawled flat on his back, his pillows shoved haphazardly onto the floor.

Nitori approached stepping lightly. Rin lay with one arm bent, elbow resting against the wall, his hand keeping a pack of ice in place at the juncture of neck and shoulder.

“I fucked up my shoulder,” Rin said without opening his eyes.

Nitori sunk to his knees at the bedside, landing on Rin’s pillows. He gripped the edge of the duvet by Rin’s hand.

Rin’s shoulder had seemed to be getting better, or at any rate Nitori hadn’t noticed any sign that it had been getting worse. He hadn’t seen Rin wearing the elastic sports bandage, so he’d assumed the injury had healed.

“I saw the nurse. She gave me those.” Rin lifted his finger in the direction of the desk.

Nitori looked around and spotted the opened pack of painkillers on Rin’s desk. He sprang up and grabbed the box, moving closer to the window to read the dosage and directions. He pulled out the blister pack and saw that Rin had taken two pills already.

There came knocking at the door.

Rin lurched forward trying to sit up, making a terrible snarling noise. He fell back heavily, the snarl dying in his throat, becoming a hiss of pain.

“Senpai!” Nitori knelt on the edge of the mattress, putting his hands out over Rin as if he might hold him down, though he didn’t touch him. “You mustn’t move!”

“I don’t want to see anyone,” Rin gritted out between his teeth, his eyes blazing, hawkish and wild, fixed on Nitori. “Whoever it is–”

“Of course!” Nitori hurried to the door. He opened it only part-way.

“How’s he doing?” Mikoshiba said, stood out in the corridor.

A low growl came from behind Nitori. The sound of it made the hairs on his arms stand up.

He drew the door closer to him, leaning into the frame.

Mikoshiba must have heard Rin, but he didn’t look bothered in the least.

“Just make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Anything _else_ , I mean. He wanted to bust his shoulder so badly, well, he did it. He’s as hard-headed as a–”

“I–I’ll make sure,” Nitori said, making the gap of the door even narrower as the tone of Rin’s growl dropped lower, and so became more dangerous.

Mikoshiba only shook his head. “And you can tell him he’s banned from the pool until that shoulder’s better–”

“Okay,” Nitori said through the sliver of the gap. “Thank you!” He shut the door.

“–always sticking his fucking nose in,” Rin said raggedly, leaning up on his elbow, his face tight.

“Please, Senpai! Please lie back!” Nitori’s hands hovered over Rin’s shoulders, trying to encourage him down. Rin went reticently. Nitori picked up the ice pack from where it had fallen and helped him resettle it. At some point he’d taken a seat perched on the edge of the mattress.

“Where’ve you been?” Rin said, looking up at him.

“The library. When you didn’t come back for lunch…” Nitori trailed off awkwardly. Now that he had no reason to be sitting, he became very conscious that he was still sitting on the bed, close enough that Rin’s arm was touching his knee.

“Can I get you anything?” Nitori said.

“No.”

“Can I…sit with you?”

This was how wolves spoke about that gift that omegas had for providing comfort to someone ill or injured.

Nitori was thinking about his grandmother. He'd been a favourite of hers, and she being alpha, in the last months of her life, had kept him close. He'd been only ten or so at the time. She was a towering presence even then, tucked up under her quilts, completely dependant on others, the flame of life in her dwindling away.

 _“Generous,”_ she'd said, praising him, brushing her hand through his hair.

His mother was daughter to the alpha, and she’d been hurt when she was sent away with everyone else, and the old woman would only have him, Ai, close to her.

Nitori thought his mother still remembered that slight, but she'd been proud of him, she’d told him he behaved well, staying there with the old woman for long stretches of time, quiet and quite fearless, lying with her.

“You don’t have to,” Rin said, turning his head aside.

“If you don’t want me to…”

Rin moved his hand on the duvet in an impatient motion. “Just do what you want.”

That was all Nitori needed to hear. He twisted round and put a knee on the mattress, close to Rin's leg, meaning to climb over him.

“Do you want to– like that?” Rin said. He’d clearly been expecting Nitori to stay sitting where he was.

“If that’s okay,” Nitori said uncertainly. “I usually lie down.”

“Fine then. Whatever.”

Nitori forced himself not to pause or hesitate, but climbed carefully and swiftly over Rin's legs, doing his best not to jostle the mattress too much, holding the ladder to steadying himself. He got on the other side of Rin and into the narrow gap there. He expected Rin to complain or scold that Nitori insisted on getting on the bed with him, but Rin was silent. He only moved himself over slightly to make room, grimacing because of his shoulder, keeping hold of the ice pack with one hand.

Nitori settled in alongside Rin, trying to take up as little space as possible. The duvet under him was warm where Rin had been.

“I do this for my family when someone’s sick,” Nitori said. “I'm good at it.” He’d meant this to be reassuring, but realised at once it sounded boastful. "I mean, since I was little, I…"

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Rin said in a low voice. His eyes were closed again. He said nothing else, and Nitori took this as his cue to begin.

Nitori closed his eyes as well and sighed, making himself relax. He instinctively felt for the bond he’d made especially for Rin. Even if it was useless, touching it in his mind helped him to focus his thoughts on Rin exclusively, it was like a channel that he could pour his will into.

He touched the bond lightly, thinking warmly of Rin, painting a picture in his mind, drawing together recollections, Rin swimming, Rin sitting opposite in the canteen, the movement of his hands, his listening stillness when they were having a conversation.

Rin shifted a little at his side and then he was still again.

Nitori began the soft rumbling vibration in his throat that made his whole chest thrum like a bell being brushed. He breathed and the tension in his body bled away, and he willed Rin to relax as well.

The bond was imbued with thoughts of Rin that Nitori had woven together over time, day by day, ever since the first few weeks of living together. He hadn’t been consciously aware of it at first, but then he’d realised, and the bond was too pronounced to ignore, and Nitori had sheltered it and nourished it. What was the harm? He just thought of the bond as the place he went in his mind to daydream about Rin.

It proved very useful now. He found himself quickly engrossed in the task of giving Rin comfort. With the bond glowing in his mind’s eye, it was easy to follow it like a guide through the dark, leading him towards that state between waking and sleep.

Rin was there. It was just the two of them against a night sky. The rhythm of Nitori's breathing and the gentle rumbling noise in his throat was a tide sighing in and out. Nitori would take Rin’s pain away.

He reached for Rin’s hand.

~*~

Nitori was jolted awake by a hand shoving roughly at his shoulder. Vertigo swept through him for an instant as he was rolled over onto his back, his elbow jarring against the wall.

He struggled up with a groggy noise of confusion, his head reeling. The mattress sunk and bounced with the force of Rin lurching to his feet.

The room was much darker than it had been. Rin was a black shape moving away from the bed. Nitori couldn’t get his thoughts together, everything was in a bleary tangle. Rin’s scent was potent all around Nitori, like an invisible humid haze, making his head thick.

The light snapped on. Nitori hid his eyes behind his hand, momentarily dazzled.

“What the hell did you do?” Rin barked.

He stood in the middle of the room, his hand clutching his shoulder, staring accusingly at Nitori.

“Senpai?” Nitori said uncertainly, his voice rough with sleep.

“You healed me!” Rin said. “I didn’t ask you to do that!”

Nitori climbed clumsily across the bed. “No, I– That’s not possible–”

“I didn’t want this!” Rin shouted.

Nitori shook his head weakly. “But I – I can’t heal–” He got up from the bed, putting out his hand to Rin. “Is your shoulder–?”

Rin jerked back from him, taking a seething breath through his teeth. He went over to the door and tore his jacket off the peg and pulled it on savagely. His movements were powerful and unimpeded, his shoulder and neck giving him no trouble.

“Can’t do this–” Rin ground out as he bent to pull on his shoes. He spoke almost under his breath, viciously spitting the words in faltering bursts. “Just get it through your head. Can’t happen – so don’t even fucking think about it–”

He straightened up, raking his hand roughly through his hair. His fiery eyes locked on Nitori, who had been standing to one side in stupid silence.

He grabbed Nitori’s arm and hauled him in close, giving him a shake. “You don’t ever do that again.”

Nitori swayed unresisting in his grasp, close to tears, utterly bewildered. Rin’s scent was all over him, he realised dimly. They’d fallen asleep together, and at some point while sleeping Rin must have scent marked him.

Rin breathed deeply. His eyes swept over Nitori’s face. He seemed to realise the same thing that Nitori had in the same moment.

He shoved Nitori away.

Nitori stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t thrown his hand out and caught hold of the bedpost. His palm slapped against the cold metal and he pressed himself back against it, crouching submissively, holding still.

Rin was frozen as well. He stood uncertain, because he had not meant to shove Nitori. He was breathing quick, agitated and angry.

“Nitori–” he said roughly.

Nitori didn’t dare lift his eyes.

Rin made a frustrated, grating noise in his throat, then he swung away and jerked the door open, shutting it behind him with a bang.

~*~

The canteen was noisy, full of continuous chatter and shouts and laughter, the clatter of trays being set down, the scrape of chair legs on the floor, the din magnified by the large space.

Nitori stood with his tray looking for somewhere to sit.

He wasn’t paying attention as he turned, and neither was the second-year boy who was walking past with his group of friends. The tray the boy was carrying collided with Nitori’s.

While Nitori was saved by having an unopened juice carton, the other boy's drink had no lid and its orange contents slopped out onto his shirt. Their trays clattered noisily to the floor.

A great cheer went up from the canteen.

“Why don't you watch where you're going, idiot?” the boy said angrily, shaking juice off his arm.

Nitori was already crouched down, trying as best he could to pile things back onto his tray, stammering apologies.

“You’re the one who walked into him,” a voice said from behind.

Nitori looked around in surprise and saw it was Shimada standing there.

The second-year boy opened and closed his mouth, still embarrassed and angry, but cowed enough not to answer back right away. A teacher came over from the staff table before anything more could happen.

“Alright now, boys, alright, don’t make a fuss,” he said, sounding hassled, waving for one of the kitchen staff to come with a mop.

Nitori picked up his tray sticky with spilt food and looked again at the mess on the floor.

“It’s okay, come on,” Shimada said, touching Nitori's elbow, guiding him away from the accident scene and away from everyone watching. They went over to the hatch where the used trays were stacked and Nitori scraped the tray clean mechanically and set it aside.

“Come on, we’ll get you a new one,” Shimada said, already turning Nitori back towards the queue.

“No–" Nitori stopped in place. "I don’t – I’m not hungry.”

“Don't be embarrassed, it’s alright.”

“I need to go.”

“Alright,” Shimada said, and Nitori knew from this easy acquiescence that the older boy could see that he was upset. 

They made for the double doors that gave onto the quad, and as Nitori was about to go through, Shimada put his hand to the small of Nitori's back and kept it there until they were outside.

“Are you alright?” Shimada said. He was wearing his uniform. It was the first time Nitori had seen him dressed in anything other than the sports clothes he wore for practice and running.

“I’m sorry, you can go back in,” Nitori said. “Your lunch–”

“I was finished. Do you want to sit down?” Shimada nodded to the benches across the green.

“That’s okay.”

“Come on,” Shimada said, and he brushed his knuckles lightly against Nitori’s cheek, something he hadn't done before.

They crossed to the benches and sat, the large cedar tree on the green close at their backs.

“I meant to ask…” Shimada started searching through the front compartment of his school satchel, coming out with his cell phone. “For your number. So we can arrange our runs.” He thumbed at the phone screen.

“Mm, of course!” Nitori turned to rummage out his own phone. He handed it to Shimada, the phone charms jingling a little.

“Cute,” Shimada said under his breath, then he was busy putting his number in. Nitori was secretly grateful to have the time to properly calm down without having to keep up a conversation. It had been stupid getting upset in the canteen. His thoughts slid inevitably back to the night before, like the landscape in his mind drew down to that point, and before he could stop he was remembering.

His phone settling into his open hand interrupted his unhappy thoughts. He looked up at Shimada, who was watching him.

“I’ll text you, then,” Shimada said.

Nitori nodded, smiling quickly.

Shimada went on regarding him, dark eyes steady and patient.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Nitori looked down at his phone in his hand, the little animal charms. His eyes were abruptly teary.

“Tell me,” Shimada said.

“Matsuoka-senpai–” Nitori tucked his head lower. “Matsuoka-senpai's angry with me.”

“What happened?”

Nitori shook his head.

“He upset you,” Shimada said.

“No– He was– He hurt his shoulder when he was swimming.” Nitori looked up quickly, meeting Shimada’s gaze fervently. “He works really hard – harder than anybody.”

Shimada nodded, his face impassive.

Nitori felt a sudden icy feeling in his chest. He thought back to Rin and Shimada’s encounter in the changing rooms. Was he being disloyal to Rin?

“It’s nothing.” Nitori rubbed impatiently at his damp lashes. “I’m just – being a baby.”

“He’s got a short fuse, Mikoshiba told me that much,” Shimada said, mildly enough. “So he got angry with you?”

“Because – I keep messing everything up.”

“Messing up how?”

“I just wanted to help,” Nitori said in a rush. “I sat with him, to help with his shoulder. I don’t know what happened, we just – fell asleep. And I think – he said – he said I healed his shoulder.”

Shimada’s eyes widened slightly. “You have that ability?”

“No. Or I don’t think so. I’ve never done anything like that before. No one in my family can heal that I know of.”

“These things can happen,” Shimada said. “But you know if you did heal him, it was an incredibly generous thing to do. Any alpha would be honoured to receive such a gift.”

Nitori ducked his head, not wanting to see the grave expression in Shimada’s face.

“He didn’t want me to heal him,” Nitori said. “He was – really angry. I shouldn’t have done it without asking him, but I didn’t know I was doing it–”

Shimada had turned his head away. His jaw was tightly clenched. His hand, resting on the back of the bench, held on stiffly. His phone was in his other hand still, and his thumb tapped the side of the casing restlessly.

Nitori was suddenly sure he’d been wrong to say anything. It was inappropriate to go to another alpha and talk about something like this.

He got quickly to his feet, swallowing down his high emotion.

“I’ve been talking too much, Shimada-senpai!” He reached for his bag and pulled it on. “I’m sorry for all this.”

Shimada stood as well.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “You don’t need to apologise.”

“I should go.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

Nitori ducked his head. “Please excuse me.”

He retreated, walking away up the path. He looked back once and saw that Shimada was still standing by the bench, watching him go.

~*~

Nitori was coming down the library steps when a shout came from across the yard,

" _Fight!_ "

A boy who was hanging out of the doorway of the sports centre, waving his arm frantically to encourage people to come. Nitori recognised him as a member of the swim team.

Nitori jogged across the yard, not entirely sure what compelled him, but feeling drawn as surely as if there was an invisible cord pulling him along.

Nitori had spent the rest of lunch in the library. The bell was about to go and he should have been heading to his next class.

A few other boys had gathered at the entrance of the sports centre, eager to witness a brawl.

Nitori followed in after them, a peculiar dread settling in his stomach.

Yells were coming from the direction of the changing rooms and there was a din of snarling and growling that instantly brought on a prickling alertness all through Nitori's body. Boys were gathered around the change room doorway, a couple keeping watch for a teacher, most absorbed in what was going on inside. Nitori pushed his way through.

He stood in the jostling circle near the first bank of lockers, stumbling slightly as somebody elbowed him. He squirmed forward and saw–

The end of a fight, the two combatants having been pulled apart. Mikoshiba and another third-year were wrestling with a bloody-nosed Rin, holding him at bay as he thrashed to get at his opponent, who was being similarly restrained. Even through the chaos of limbs and struggling torsos, Nitori at once recognised Shimada.

"Teacher!" somebody bellowed, and a different kind of chaos took over as the onlookers drew back and scattered.

In the confusion, Nitori fought his way forward. He made out Shimada's face and tried to catch his eye, and the boys holding him back must have released him, because then Shimada was face-to-face with Mikoshiba, both of them breathing hard, and Mikoshiba saying something that Nitori couldn't hear.

The teacher still hadn't come, and compared to what had just been, the quiet that descended now was eerie.

Shimada's shoes echoed as he walked towards the entrance. He noticed Nitori at last. He stopped in front of him. He was dishevelled with his tie pulled loose, his blazer hanging open. His upper lip was puffy. He was still panting a little, and he looked at Nitori with heat in his eyes, but no anger.

"Go on," Mikoshiba said, coming to stand close at his shoulder.

Shimada's eyes remained fixed on Nitori for a beat, and then he walked on without a word and left the changing room.

"Nitori," Mikoshiba said. "You go and wait in the office."

Nitori was staring at Rin, who was now sitting on one of the benches, hunched forward, his face hidden by the fall of his hair.

"Nitori," Mikoshiba said again, a tone of command in his voice that an omega could not ignore. He cuffed gently at the back of Nitori's neck. "Go on. Go to my office. It's alright."

Nitori went in a daze, barely aware of what he did. He came back to himself as he shut the office door behind him and then he was in the quiet, dark room, alone.

~*~


	4. Chapter 4

Nitori sat on the low couch facing the door, his bag in his lap.

A clock ticked on the wall. Fluorescent light from the corridor outside came dimly through the blinds, making slatted lines on the floor and catching the edges of the plagues and trophies in the display case behind the desk.

Just as Nitori began to feel like he could sit there no longer, the door handle turned and Mikoshiba came in. 

"Is Matsuoka-senpai okay? Where is he?" Nitori said, jumping up and coming forward.

"He's fine. We're just lucky it ended before a teacher got involved."

"Can I go?" Nitori was already trying to slip past Mikoshiba and get to the door, but a hand on his shoulder stayed him.

"Easy, cub. You need to answer some questions for me first."

"He's hurt!"

"I told you, he's fine. He already left anyway."

Nitori looked to the door in dismay.

"Better let him storm off, there’s no talking to him right now," Mikoshiba said. He gestured to the couch. Nitori reluctantly resumed his seat.

Mikoshiba went to lean against the desk, folding his arms in front of him.

"Do you want to tell me how his shoulder's completely better in one night?" he said. "Did you do that?"

Nitori avoided his gaze.

"You sat with him?” Mikoshiba said. 

Nitori nodded.

"Did you heal him?"

"I don’t know. I'm not a healer. He said I did, but I can’t believe I could have…"

Mikoshiba shrugged. "Well, he could hardly move the last time I saw him. You must have done something.” He cocked his head. “Did he show you gratitude? What was all that shouting about last night?" 

Nitori stared stupidly down at his bag in his lap.

Mikoshiba watched him for a moment, then made a low, wolfish noise of disgust. "Well. At least now I understand Shimada's behaviour." He dropped his arms, his hands coming to rest on the edge of the desk either side of him. 

“It’s my fault,” Nitori said numbly.

"No. All Saturday I watched that idiot Matsuoka swim laps like he was trying to do himself an injury – and he managed that nicely. I had to dive in and get him, you know, yesterday when his shoulder gave up? That's how bad it was. I doubt he'd appreciate me telling you. He was pushing himself past endurance. He was so exhausted he couldn't even pull himself up out of the water. You can imagine the thanks I got for my troubles.

"I thought we'd be able to get some peace around here with him out of commission for a few days. Then I wake up last night to him shouting and banging doors, and this morning I get in and he's back in the pool, doing laps like a madman again. I don't think he's even been to any of his classes today."

They were both quiet for a while, Nitori lost in his own thoughts. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything to Shimada-senpai,” he said. “I never thought he would do something like this.”

“You’re not still taking Matsuoka’s side here, are you?” Mikoshiba laughed. “He’s been acting like moron. What did he think was going to happen? It was only a matter of time before someone started courting you."

Nitori's head jerked up involuntarily.

"And Shimada won't be so easily intimidated," Mikoshiba added thoughtfully.

Nitori sprang to his feet a second time, his bag clasped in front of him like a shield.

"Shimada-senpai's not– He isn't– He has a girlfriend!" he spluttered. "He's not– You've really got the wrong idea, I don't know why he did any of this!" 

"I do." Mikoshiba drew himself up straight. "Whatever else is going on, Matsuoka acted like a pig. You don't reprimand an omega for healing you. Such behaviour is repulsive."

Nitori couldn’t accept it. It didn't seem possible that he'd healed Rin's shoulder so effortlessly, without even realising it. And the idea that Rin had conducted himself badly as an alpha didn't conform to Nitori's picture of him. Rin always knew what to do.

"I have to find him," Nitori said aloud.

"Leave Matsuoka to lick his wounds,” Mikoshiba said. “You know alphas. We can be too proud sometimes."

Nitori bowed his head and then went to the door.

"If you're determined to wait," Mikoshiba said, "it could be a long wait."

Nitori acted as if he had not heard. He drew the door open and left the office.

~*~

Emerging from the sports centre, a headache came on Nitori as suddenly as if a switch had been flicked. He couldn't seem to marshal his thoughts, it was as if the furniture in his mind had all been rearranged. He began to walk, vaguely thinking about his remaining classes. After a few minutes realised his feet were carrying back to the dormitories.

Alone in quiet dorm room, Nitori shed his bag and his coat and blazer, toed off his shoes, climbed up the ladder and curled up under the duvet.

When he woke, his headache was gone, and it was evening. He'd slept for much longer than he'd meant to. The school day was long over. 

Nitori went and got his phone out of his bag, thinking he’d try calling Rin.

He had two missed calls from Shimada. 

He stared at the glowing screen for a moment. 

Then he selected Rin’s number and hit Call. It went straight to Rin’s answer phone.

Nitori leant against the desk, still holding his phone, indecisive. He looked again at the missed call alerts.

The soccer team held practice on Mondays. Shimada would probably be down at the field now, setting up.

Not pausing to consider what he planned to do or say, Nitori swiftly changed his clothes and hurried out the door.

His mind felt clearer from sleeping, and his body seized by a kind of strange wild urgency, and he ran all the way from the dormitory block to the track field. 

It was later than he'd first realised, the sky already darkening. 

He arrived breathless at the top of the stone steps that led down the slope to the field and saw that the floodlights were all on. The team was already in the midst of practice. 

Nitori stopped and stood breathing, looking down at the players as they trained. Now and then he heard the pipe of a whistle being blown, and the call of voices. He quickly picked out Shimada, standing to one side of a row of plastic poles standing up from the ground which a group of boys were taking turns weaving in and out of, and as Nitori watched, Shimada blew a whistle and there was a pause in activity as he called some instruction or advice, and the others stood listening.

Shimada was busy, and had responsibilities. Nitori didn't know what he'd meant by coming here.

The thump of cleats on the ground behind him made Nitori turn sharply.

"Sorry," the soccer player said. He had a clipboard in one hand, a stopwatch round his neck, and he wore a navy and white sports jacket, the same as Shimada was wearing. In his arms he carried what looked like several traffic cones all slotted into one another.

Nitori moved to let him pass, but the boy paused to look at him again.

"Are you looking for the captain?" he said, and he grinned a little. "I'll take you to him, come on."

Nitori hadn't been prepared for his purpose being guessed and he was instantly flustered.

"I think he's – busy–" he said weakly.

"Nah," the boy said cheerfully, walking past him, assuming he would follow, and Nitori only hesitated for a couple of seconds before doing just that, though he was silently wracking his brains to come up with some excuse to stop and go back. He didn't want to interrupt Shimada while he was training.

But no excuse was forthcoming, and soon he and the boy were going through the door in the fence that surrounded the field and the boy was dumping the cones down at the sidelines while Nitori stood by, feeling utterly out of place and shy with the noise of the boys training, their shouts and the thump of the ball being kicked, all of a sudden up-close, he standing under the floodlights as if on a stage, the grass of the field and the colours of the fluorescent bibs worn by the players all in vivid colours. He felt he'd been drawn right to the edge of another realm that just moments before he'd been an invisible spectator to.

"Wait here," his guide said, before trotting out onto the pitch, leaving Nitori with the stack of cones.

Nitori watched helplessly as the boy crossed to where Shimada stood with half of the team. The other half, who had been taking practice shots at goal, were gradually noticing Nitori's presence and starting to look over. Nitori folded his arms self-consciously. He checked to see where his envoy had gotten to, and realised that the boy had already reached Shimada, and Shimada was looking over in Nitori's direction – as were all of the other boys who had been training at the poles.

Shimada stayed only long enough to pass instructions to the boy who must have been his vice-captain, and then he was shouldering through his teammates and jogging towards Nitori.

"Are you alright?" he said as he reached him, looking him up and down swiftly.

"Yes, I'm fine – and I'm sorry," Nitori said rapidly, "I didn't mean to interrupt you–"

"It's fine," Shimada said, and he placed his hand on the back of Nitori's neck, his thumb brushing upwards a little way into the short hair at the nape of Nitori's neck. His hand was warm and strong, and resting there seemed to anchor Nitori to the spot. 

For a moment Nitori could only stare stupidly up at Shimada.

It wasn't that he'd never been touched like this before. Alphas in his family performed these sorts of gestures all of the time, and at school Mikoshiba cuffed at him now and then during training, and Rin did things approaching this, though only they were alone, and never for so long as this. 

Shimada had done it with a casual ease, and Nitori knew it was partly to do with the setting, the fact that Shimada was in the role of captain at present, and his mindset was that of a leader directing others.

Still, the fact was, Nitori wasn't used to the attention.

"Will you be alright to wait until the end of practice?" Shimada said.

Nitori found himself staring at Shimada's mouth, his lower lip, where some slight purplish bruising had begun to show.

He blinked, snapping out of it, and nodded.

"It'll only be fifteen minutes," Shimada said.

"Okay," Nitori said.

"Okay." Shimada let go of him. 

Nitori headed to sit in the little dug out and Shimada went back out onto the field.

As Nitori sat, two players walked past, casting considering looks his way, one of them saying, "Does the captain have an omega?"

And the other replying, "Do we find out who took a swing at him now?"

~*~

Practice ended with Shimada and his vice-captain collecting the team together for a final word before they were dismissed, and then Shimada made straight for the dugout. Nitori stood and came to the rail.

"Okikaze will take care of packing up the gear," he said, gesturing over his shoulder. "So we can go for a walk, if you like?" 

There were still some soccer players taking their time heading for their showers, and some others who were helping the vice-captain, and so Shimada and Nitori were observed with curiosity as they walked together off the pitch, climbing the steps up the slope until they were shadows beyond the floodlights.

"You came and found me," Shimada said. "Can I take that to mean you aren't angry with me?" 

Nitori waited until they'd reached the top of the stair, then he turned to check there was nobody nearby before answering, "If I'd known you were going to do that – I wouldn't have told you anything!"

Shimada came level with him and halted. 

"I'm sorry you saw any of it," he said. "But beyond that…I can't say I'm sorry." He lifted his chin, anticipating Nitori's response and not seeking to avoid it. 

He didn’t even regret hitting Rin. Nitori saw in his mind's eye, Rin with a trickle of blood down his mouth and chin, and the way he'd been sat on the bench immediately after the fight was broken up.

Nitori was looking at Shimada as these thoughts crossed his mind, and unconsciously his look had turned accusing.

"Alright, so you are angry me," the older boy said, sheepish all at once, shifting his feet so his boots clacked on the stone. 

"I didn't want you to talk to him," Nitori said. "I didn’t want you to hit him!"

"You have to understand," Shimada said grimly, "his misconduct towards you doesn't just shame him. It shames all of us. As an alpha, he should know better."

"It wasn't misconduct!"

"You might not see it that way. But it was."

"He only shouted at me because – because it was a shock. And it's just – he really hates being fussed over. More than anything. I make him angry all the time fussing too much–"

"He certainly isn't worthy of it then," Shimada broke in. 

Nitori's mouth fell open and Shimada quickly held up his hand, smiling wryly.

"Okay, I'll stop provoking you into defending him. I can see you're quite loyal." 

Nitori closed his mouth. He nodded and Shimada's smile grew. 

Shimada looked ahead at the path and back at Nitori in silent question and Nitori started forward and they walked together in silence for a few seconds.

"You know," Shimada said, "you may be a true omega, like from the old stories."

The idea that he’d healed Rin was still too new, too alien. It was a gift that only some omega had, and Nitori had never thought he could be capable of it. If he thought about it too hard, it quickly felt overwhelming.

"You're making fun of me…" he mumbled.

"No," Shimada said.

The path was narrow, and being so close, Nitori could smell the scent of the older boy strongly, a clean odour of sweat from the running and drills at practice. It wasn't unpleasant.

"Were you afraid, earlier?" Shimada said.

Nitori nodded. He'd been looking ahead at the main school building with its lights in the windows. Now he glanced sidelong at Shimada's face in profile.

"Does it hurt?" he said.

Shimada took a second to understand him.

"No. He's got a lousy swing anyway. Just caught me off guard." 

"I don't know why you had to fight."

"Should I have just let him hit me?"

Nitori came to a halt once more, and Shimada did the same.

"You think I threw the first punch?" he said. 

Nitori floundered for a moment. Shimada laughed quietly and didn't look at all offended. There was however something a little sad and regretful in how his turned his head away. 

"Nitori…" He put his hands into his jacket pockets. He looked up the slope to the school, then shook his head slightly and looked back at Nitori. "It doesn't seem right, here. Will you meet me tomorrow–"

"Please just tell me," Nitori said.

Shimada was quiet for a while, studying Nitori as if trying to gauge him.

"Are you very attached?" he said finally. "To him."

Nitori blinked, caught off guard by the question. He touched the neck of his t-shirt, then passed his hand unthinkingly over the gem, barely a bump where he felt it through the t-shirt.

"Matsuoka-senpai's my friend," he said. He realised he was touching his gem through his t-shirt and he quickly dropped his hands to his sides. 

Shimada had been watching him, but there was no judgement in his look, and no surprise there either.

"I know it's not my place," he said. "We've only known each other a short time. Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't get involved. But I think you're a very fine person, and I'm afraid you're going to get hurt. Well, in fact I think you've already been hurt." 

A breeze gusted up the slope, rippling through the grass either side of the path, ruffling Nitori's hair. He shivered, but he couldn't feel the cold.

"I'm asking you to consider distancing yourself from Matsuoka," Shimada said. "It's clear there's a bond between you, even if he's doing his best to suppress it. You must be aware there's something–” 

Nitori’s ears were ringing.

_It's clear there's a bond between you._

He heard the rest of Shimada’s words like he was hearing from far away.

“–off about him. The first time I saw him, I wasn't sure what it was. But then today, it was obvious."

The sound of voices made Shimada glance back the way they'd come. Some members of the soccer team were making their way up the steps, their kit bags over their shoulders.

"Come on," Shimada said, stepping off the path. Nitori followed him over the grass, towards a line of trees. There was hardly any daylight left, and nobody noticed the two of them passing under the trees.

Shimada resumed as if there'd been no interruption. 

"Forming an attachment with someone so self-serving won't end well."

"He's not! I haven’t– He's not self-serving!" Nitori stammered, feeling bombarded, his heart jumping. How did Shimada know he’d made a bond for Rin?

"He's self-serving enough that he made the choice to split himself in half." Shimada made a quick gesture, drawing a line with his finger down the middle of his forehead. "He suppresses his wolf. My father told me there were some people like that, but I never saw one for myself until now. Matsuoka's got himself on a tight leash. He'd choke the wolf with it if he could."

Nitori was shaking his head, scandalised. "You – you shouldn't speak like that!"

"I don't mean to upset you. But I think his behaviour towards you would confuse you less, and cause you less pain, if you understood this about him. He's split."

"He's not!" Nitori cried. "It isn't right, saying these things!"

Shimada looked grim but determined. "Does he have many friends? Does he care about pack? Or does he only care about himself and his own ambition?"

"You're wrong!" Nitori burst out. "You don't know him, you don't know what happened in his past – you don't know what he went through!"

"That's true enough. And maybe I judge him unfairly. I might even pity him if I thought he was doing this for any other reason than the obvious. Highly driven people can often only afford to care about themselves, and for that reason they don't form attachments, they put their own ambitions first. I think Matsuoka is one of these people. And I wouldn't care what he chose to do, except when it comes to his behaviour towards you, I do care." 

Shimada took a step closer to Nitori. "How many times has he pushed you away?"

Nitori ducked his head to try and hide his reaction.

"And how cruelly? And how many times after that has he given you just enough hope so you'll keep the bond going between you?" 

"There's no bond," Nitori said. "You're wrong."

"Nitori." Shimada took him by the shoulders. "His wolf wants what's natural between you, but he won't allow it. That's what's perverse."

"You're wrong," Nitori said again. He stepped back, out of Shimada's hold, stumbling a little on uneven ground all buckled with tree roots. He turned blindly to get away from the conversation, but Shimada caught his hand.

"The reason he hit me," he said, low and urgent, "was because I asked him if he intended to do the honourable thing and either make a claim on you or release you. He'd been in control of himself until I asked him that. Then he lost it. He has a bond with you but he won’t acknowledge it. His wolf knows it, and saw me as a threat and reacted instinctively."

Shimada touched Nitori under the chin so Nitori lifted his head and met his gaze.

"He encourages you and then does nothing. He lets you come near and then pushes you away. His wolf wants you, but he won't give in. He's just selfishly stringing you along."

Nitori could only shake his head, unable to speak.

"It's cruel to you," Shimada said. "It's unnatural, and it'll only cause pain, to him and you."

"You're wrong," Nitori said. "About everything! He doesn’t– There’s no bond, it’s just me! I made a bond for him, but he never – of course he’d never–"

"Nitori." Shimada touched Nitori's cheek, which was hot, and wet with tears. Nitori hadn't known he was crying.

"He doesn't want me," Nitori said, his breath coming in little gasps. "And whatever–I feel, I'd never – presume–"

"You should presume," Shimada said, looking down at him fiercely. "He's given you every reason to presume."

"No – you don't know him–" Hot tears spilt from Nitori's eyes, and Shimada's hand was cupping his cheek and his thumb wiped at the tears. "He's not like you say–"

“The bond you made for him was strong enough that you were able to heal him. You know that’s not nothing. He's an idiot who doesn't know how lucky he is," Shimada said. “If you were mine–" He stopped himself, blinking in surprise. 

Nitori stared up at him.

Nitori was suddenly aware of everything – the trees all around them, the tangle of dark branches against the evening sky, how close Shimada was, how tall he was, broad-shouldered and strong, a young man, not a boy, the warmth of his hand against Nitori's face, his fingertips resting just under Nitori's jaw. 

"I'm sorry," Shimada murmured. "I know now's not the time."

"I don't understand," Nitori whispered.

"I think you do." Shimada looked at him a moment longer, the moment suspended, then he leant in slowly and pressed his mouth to Nitori's.

Nitori felt the warm meeting of their lips for only a moment and then he stumbled back, wide-eyed.

"Nitori–" Shimada took a step after him.

"I have to go," Nitori gasped. He turned and ran.

~*~

Nitori entered the dorm room to find lights on – both the ceiling light and the lamp over on Rin's desk. There were other signs that Rin had returned: his jacket on the peg on the door, his sports bag propped against the dresser, his phone and keys and some papers lying on his bed.

Nitori closed the door and went uncertainly further into the room. He paused near the bed, not sure what to do with himself, and unconsciously touched his fingers to his lips, which still felt conspicuous, like they'd swollen to twice their size, like anyone who looked at him would know that only a short time ago–

Nitori turned the thought away and went to Rin's desk. There was a photograph lying there, the emulsion reflecting the lamp light like a little gold window.

Nitori picked up the photograph carefully. It was a little faded, yellowed at the edges with age. Four boys in swim shorts stood in front of a pool, grinning and proudly showing off their medals, the middle boy holding up a trophy.

The click of the door handle made Nitori jump. He put the photograph down quickly on the desk just as Rin came in.

Rin paused in the doorway. His hair was dark and dripping wet and he had a towel round his waist. His eyes slid from Nitori to the desk where the photograph lay.

"Sorry," Nitori said, stepping away, "I just–"

Rin came in and shut the door and went to the dresser, pulling open a drawer and taking out some clothes. 

Nitori stared until he was aware he was doing so, and then turned quickly to look somewhere else while Rin got dressed.

"Sorry for being a dick last night," Rin said.

Nitori turned in surprise. Rin finished pulling his t-shirt on over his head and then pulled out the rack to hang his towel up.

"And thank you. For my shoulder."

Rin kept his back to Nitori while he straightened the towel.

Nitori was too amazed to say anything immediately. Rin turned to face him, but didn't meet his eye. Nitori recovered his voice.

"You don't have to–"

"Yes, I do," Rin said. He went over to the desk and picked up the photograph and tucked it into a book, out of sight. He started straightening some things on his desk, then said, "I've put in for a room change."

Nitori went very still. "What?"

Rin put a couple of books up on the shelf above the desk. 

"They said the soonest it could be is a week. So you're stuck with me until then at least."

Nitori watched Rin in disbelief. "You – you mean – you want to leave?"

Rin braced his hands on the back of his desk chair and stood leaning against it.

"I don't think it's working, do you?"

Nitori moved closer, desperate to see Rin's face. "I didn't know Shimada-senpai was going to do that today," he said. "I never meant for–"

"It's not that."

"Then why?" Nitori said.

Rin turned. His eyes locked with Nitori's at last.

"Do you want it to keep going like it's been? Like last night?"

"I don't care about that! You can't leave!"

"It'll be better that way."

"I–I'll tidy my things," Nitori said frantically. "I promise! And I'll be quiet when you're trying to work, and I won't be annoying anymore! Please don't go!"

"It's arranged now," Rin said, pushing away from the desk with a quick, restless movement.

Nitori reached out and grabbed Rin's wrist.

"I won't let you!" he cried.

Rin put his hand over Nitori's, slowly breaking his grip, not rough, but firm.

"You should start thinking about yourself," he said. He was holding Nitori's hand in his.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not good. With people." Rin let go of Nitori's hand.

"Yes you are, Senpai!" Nitori protested.

"No," Rin said, growing frustrated, "I'm not. You know I'm not. You need to make some friends. Find other people–"

"I don't want other people!" Nitori cried. "You're my best friend!"

Rin stared at him.

Guided by instinct alone, which illuminated clearly in his mind what he must do, Nitori reached for Rin's hand again and took it in both his own. He meant to place it against his neck, in the unequivocal sign between wolves of closeness and trust. 

Rin had stood frozen as if in a trance, his eyes fixed on Nitori, but then just as his open palm was about to settle against the side of Nitori's neck, he jerked his hand back as if he'd been burnt.

"Don't," he snapped, stepping back, bumping into the desk. "I told you. I need to focus. I made a promise. I have to make it to the Olympics–"

"You don't have to be alone!" Nitori reached for the bond, unthinkingly. As he touched it, it was as if something shoved him back, a cold, hard jolt. Where there had always been the sensation of a flowing channel before, now there was a block, a numb stillness.

Rin stepped past Nitori and went over to the bed.

"I need to sleep." 

Nitori heard Rin moving the things off his bunk, pulling the covers back, then the crunch of the mattress springs as he sat down. 

There was some more shuffling, and then silence as he lay still.

"I don’t want to talk about this again," Rin said.

~*~

Nitori lay awake in the dark room. It was raining outside, and the wind was blowing the rain in savage gusts against the window. The sound was like a monster that had crawled out from the sea.

Nitori lay still under the warm covers, listening, swallowed up in the noise.

It was late, probably already the early hours of the morning.

Nitori sat up. On the bunk beneath, Rin was asleep. Soon enough, it wouldn't be Rin sleeping there, but someone else. The only time Nitori would see Rin would be at swim practice, competitions, around school now and then, and Rin would have no reason to talk to him because they no longer shared a room, and there'd be no connection between them.

The thought of encountering Rin, perhaps passing him in the corridor, and Rin not speaking a word to him, or even looking at him in acknowledgement, was so horrible, it was like a physical weight bearing down on Nitori.

He climbed down the ladder. The racket from outside covering any noise he made.

His thoughts were strangely vivid, scenarios playing out in his mind stuck on a loop as he felt around in the dark for the pair of running shorts he'd left on top of his kit bag on the floor. He pulled the shorts on, then located his sneakers and crouched down while he laced them. He turned the door handle slowly, holding it with both hands to be quiet, then stepped out into the passage where the light was still on. He drew the door closed, watching through the gap as the block of light on the carpet narrowed to nothing, and the outline of Rin's body on the lower bunk didn't stir. 

There was a laundry room downstairs at the back of the dormitory building, and anyone thinking of slipping out after curfew knew to use the laundry room door. Teachers took turns each night, patrolling. If Nitori was seen, he'd be in trouble, but the weather like it was, he felt like he was washed from existence as soon as he stepped out into the hammering rain, the world disappearing with the laundry room that disappeared as the door shut. Then it was very, very dark, and the slippery stone path wasn't like something from ordinary life.

The wind tore at his t-shirt and tried to batter him bodily sideways as he walked. He was soaked through in a matter of seconds, as surely as if he'd stood under a running showerhead.

The noise of the wind was deafening as it struck his ears. He could see where he was going by the lights from the school buildings, which were visible through the sheeting rain, and he could orient himself that way. But his senses were otherwise limited to such a degree that familiar places looked alien, shapes in the darkness that he knew to be trees or bushes shattered into pieces and reformed and gestured wildly like writhing spirits.

Nitori questioned, in a remote part of his mind, why he was walking around in the dark and the rain, but it was an abstract worry, like he was vaguely curious about the behaviour of someone else, someone not quite real, or like he was observing himself in a dream, and because he knew it was a dream, he could do nothing but passively watch as the dream spun itself out.

There was a stretch of woodland between the school and the main road. To follow the road with lead to the train station. Nitori instead went away from the road, travelling down the slope to the back fields, leaving behind the lights of the school, descending. Here there was almost no light to see by. He stopped once, halfway down the grassy slope, mud all up his legs and his bare feet squelching and sliding in his shoes. He looked back over his shoulder, gripped with despair at having forgotten something vitally important, trying to remember it, failing.

He continued on until he was into the trees. There was a track which they were made to run sometimes for P.E., and Nitori thought he ought to find that, but the thought sunk away again and pretty soon he was standing in the woods with no sense of how he'd come to be there. The sound of the wind all through the branches was a tempest on the ocean, Nitori was a small ship dragged along by irresistible currents, his fear of being lost surfacing at intervals, like a lucid thought in a fever, only to be overwhelmed by the compulsion to keep going.

It came to an end as he stepped forward and his foot met with empty space where he'd expected ground to be. He rolled his ankle in the first moments of trying to keep upright as he stumbled down the bank, and then losing his footing altogether, he slid and fell in a hard tumble of limbs.

The rain pelted his back, he lay panting and shivering, the ground under him a carpet of wet leaves and the smell of earth and vegetation wet in his nose.

He sat up, wiping at himself ineffectually, and looked up at the bank, the upper lip barely discernable, though his eyes were as accustomed to the darkness as they ever could be.

His ankle hurt him and kept him from trying to stand. He was shaking all over. He found it strange that it didn't scare him. All he felt was grief.

Right after his grandmother had died, he'd felt the loss of the connection he'd established with her at the end of her life, like a thread cut, and just the loose end left to him, that his child's mind would visit and prod and puzzle over in restless confusion. But he'd been only little then, and his mother was there with him for everything. She explained everything, she said the feeling would pass.

Would this feeling pass?

The voice shouting his name at first seemed like something he was imagining. He blinked dazedly and look round, strained to listen with his ears full of noise. The voice came again, almost lost through the tumult, but it was real, shouting his name.

The wind struck at Nitori's back and beat at his head and he curled over his knees.

The next time the voice called, it was closer, and when the shout came again, it was directly above him.

"Nitori!"

The dark figure came sliding down the bank in a rush of slippery leaves, the bulky body landing up solidly against Nitori.

"Are you alright? Are you alright?" 

Hands cupped Nitori's head clumsily in the darkness, Rin wiped Nitori's hair back from his forehead and wiped at his face to clean it, thumb smoothing his eyebrow and wiping his mouth and chin, smoothing his hair back again, carefully off his temple.

"I’m sorry – I’m sorry–" Rin swallowed in the midst of his laboured breathing. He squinted down at Nitori, and spoke gently to him, saying, "Nitori?” His arm was around Nitori's shoulders, clutching at him. "I’ve got you. It's okay now." He started to try and lift him and Nitori let out a yelp and Rin found a different way to pick him up and then they were going up the bank, Nitori with his arms locked around Rin's neck. Rin’s breath huffed powerfully, all of him thrumming with youthful strength, his muscles quivering like a race horse.

“I’ve got you,” he said again. Nitori pressed his face to Rin's neck. 

Rin spoke to him every now and then as he carried him, Nitori felt the low vibration in Rin's throat and chest.

~*~

Rin set him down on the grass and Nitori saw they'd come out of the trees at some point. Rin knelt in front of him, feeling down his legs.

"Where's it hurt? Huh?" He touched Nitori's ankle, swollen and muddy, and Nitori gripped his hand to stop him touching. "Okay. We need someone–"

Rin started to lean back and Nitori jolted forward, grabbed at Rin's shirt, pressing himself against him.

"I'm not leaving," Rin said, his hand gripping the nape of Nitori's neck. "It's okay, I'm not leaving–"

Nitori couldn't relax again from the dread that had seized him. Rin gathered him up and it was a lot easier going as they followed the paths back to the school.

They were inside, somewhere familiar, and it was warm and there was light, but Nitori kept his head hidden against Rin's neck.

He was dimly aware of voices, some impediment, then the next thing he was aware of, Rin was putting him down somewhere soft. It was their room. The little lamp was on, the room all warm and soft with light. 

"You got to get dry," Rin was saying. He pried Nitori's fingers loose and got free of his arms.

Nitori sat shivering as Rin peeled the sodden pyjama t-shirt off him. Rin pulled the duvet around Nitori's shoulders, wrapping it around him and rubbing down his arms and back. He bent his head while he worked getting Nitori's shoes off, first the right foot, then more slowly the left, careful of his ankle. The sneaker made a sucking sound coming away, waterlogged and filthy.

Rin guided Nitori to lie down and tucked the duvet in close. Nitori watched Rin from under hooded eyelids.

Rin's hair was wet, plastered flat to his head, and he still had on his wet clothes. He crouched next to the bed so he and Nitori were eye-level.

"I'm going to get the nurse, okay?"

Nitori reached for him before he could move away.

"I have to get someone for you," Rin said.

Nitori kept tight hold of the neck of his t-shirt. A thin whine rose up in his chest, came wavering in his throat, and Rin shuffled nearer, bumping his knee against the bed frame, saying hastily, "Okay, okay…" He leaned down and rubbed his cheek against Nitori's. “It’s okay.”

“Just…let me…” He leant away and pulled his shirt off over his head. He took down the duvet from Nitori's bunk and put that on top of Nitori as well. “Let me in.”

Nitori struggled to make room, his limbs slow and stupid. He settled his head against the pillow and fought to keep his eyes from falling closed. The covers shifted and the mattress sank and Rin's scent was everywhere as he tucked Nitori against him, closing him in so the wall was at his back, Rin along his front. Nitori felt safe and exhausted in a way he'd never experienced before.

Rin's hand was restless on the back of Nitori's head, touching his wet cap of hair, holding the back of his head, feeling the shape of his skull.

"Can you feel me now?" he said, his hand very warm, kneading the nape of Nitori’s neck while he snuffed at Nitori's forehead and his hair. "Ai?"

The bond. The bond was warm. Trying to touch it was like putting ice-cold hands into hot water, the ache was almost too much.

Nitori made a small noise and tucked his face closer against Rin's chest.

"You scared the shit out of me," Rin said. “I couldn’t find you.” He held Nitori tighter against him, touching him restlessly, a little clumsily, rubbing him where he was cold.

“Ai. I need to–” Rin huffed and went still briefly, almost like he was listening. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, shifting gently against Nitori.

His scent came tumbling over Nitori a second later.

“Sorry,” Rin mumbled again, rubbing his nose into Nitori’s hair.

Rin’s scent had an almost instant soporific effect. Nitori’s breathing grew deeper and more even with each inhale and the tension bled from his body.

Rin touched the side of Nitori’s face. Nitori grumbled and tried to burrow nearer, squashing himself tightly against Rin, breathing the scent of him with soft snuffling noises. He was quickly asleep.

~*~


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this fic has been amazing, I wanted to say thanks so much for all the comments/kudos/bookmarks, I'm blown away by that so thank you!

Nitori woke slowly, with a thick head. The duvets were heaped on top of him, their weight and warmth very pleasant. His body was lax and weary, and Rin’s scent, which was on everything, helped keep him dozing, drifting in and out of wakefulness, dimly aware of male voices speaking in low murmurs.

He stretched drowsily and the twinge his ankle gave in response woke him up fully. He blinked at the cream-painted wall, light with morning light.

“That was where you found him?” Mikoshiba’s voice said quietly.

There was a pause.

Rin was there, Nitori sensed him near, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“You didn't take him to the nurse?” Mikoshiba said.

“He wouldn't let me,” Rin answered. They both spoke softly, believing Nitori to be still asleep.

Nitori shut his eyes.

The boards under the carpet creaked. Mikoshiba was pacing.

“What exactly did you think was going to happen?”

“I thought doing it quick would be better.”

“Like ripping off a band-aid?” Mikoshiba huffed a laugh. “Jesus, do you know anything? Besides swimming?”

Rin was silent.

“If Shimada made a claim, it might be better for the cub.”

“I know that,” Rin said.

“And would you get out of the way?”

“Yes.”

“Like hell.”

“I would.” Rin shifted where he sat, his weight shifting the mattress. “He'd be a better alpha than me.”

“Don't pity yourself.”

There was a growl in Rin’s throat that made Nitori’s heart leap. “I don't.”

“You'll wake him,” Mikoshiba chided.

Nitori kept perfectly still. He felt Rin turn to look at him, felt the weight of his gaze. Rin’s hand tugged at the duvet where it had slipped off Nitori’s shoulder, covering him carefully.

“Has he made a claim?” Rin murmured.

“Probably.”

“Then that's what should happen.” Rin turned to face Mikoshiba again. “Shimada comes from an old family, they’re well-matched. It would be better for everyone.”

Mikoshiba hissed a soft breath through his teeth. “You're a piece of work.”

“Do you really disagree?” Rin demanded. “You said it yourself. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.”

“It doesn't matter what I think. It’s the wolf's way. It's not for us to question. The wolf forms a bond, you do honour to it, that’s it. At least that's what I was taught.”

There was stillness. Neither of them spoke for a beat.

“Are you going to make a claim?” Mikoshiba said.

Silence. Nitori’s face grew warm.

“You need to make a decision, you can’t let it go on like this. I've watched things play out long enough. When it puts the cub in danger–”

“I know.”

Mikoshiba sighed. “Just…book an appointment with Hirotsu-sensei. Explain to him why you missed your classes. I don’t want to see you anywhere near my pool until all of this is resolved. Understood?”

“Yes,” Rin said. “Captain.”

Mikoshiba grunted.

The sink in the mattress lifted as Rin stood. Nitori heard him go to the door with Mikoshiba.

“I’ve got crutches if he needs them. I sprained my ankle last year,” Mikoshiba said.

“Thanks.”

“And you should get him a plastic chair to sit on if he wants to shower.”

“Right.”

There was a pause, then a noise like Mikoshiba had clapped his hand to Rin's shoulder.

“You’ll do fine.”

The door clicked shut.

Nitori pushed the covers away and sat up. He put his legs over the side of the bed. His shins were grubby with dried mud. He was still wearing the running shorts he’d put on the night before.

“You’re awake?” Rin, standing over by the door, blinked at Nitori in surprise. “Were you pretending to be asleep?”

“I’m not a cub,” Nitori said. He gripped the bedpost and pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the ache of his ankle. “I’m not a little kid!”

“Don’t try to stand,” Rin said, moving closer. “Sit down–”

“No!”

Rin blinked at him in surprise. There was a tense pause, then Rin said, 

“I know what happened last night must have scared you–”

“I’m not scared,” Nitori said sharply.

Rin’s eyes flickered down, and Nitori was suddenly very conscious of being dirty and half naked like a child.

“I want to say…” Rin paused. “What I did was inexcusable. I didn’t know cutting the bond would do that to you. I haven’t had a bond with anybody in a long time, and I thought I was doing what was best.”

“What?” Nitori breathed.

Rin pushed his hand through his hair. “This whole thing is my fault. I never meant to make a bond with you, I should have put a stop to it sooner–”

“No,” Nitori said faintly. “No, no, that’s not– It was me, I’m the one who…”

Rin was watching him with a frown.

“Nitori, my wolf did this to you. I did this. I instigated the bond, I started the whole thing–”

“But that’s not true!”

“Do you really want to argue about this?” Rin’s voice began to rise. “The bastard wolf hasn’t left me alone since day one with you. He wanted a bond, he got one. There was no fucking reasoning with him.”

Nitori’s breath caught as he felt a sudden warmth somewhere inside, it wasn’t actually warmth, but that was the only sensation he could compare it to. It was the bond. It was Rin.

“But.” Nitori stared at Rin in disbelief. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“What?”

“You never said! You let me think it was just me! Why didn’t you say something?”

“Say something? What for? You knew.” Rin was speaking louder and louder as his frustration grew. “How can you pretend you haven’t known this whole time? I’ve been going out of my head.”

“But you always acted like it was just me!” Even as he spoke, Nitori felt his words couldn’t express the hot riotous feeling in his chest.

Rin was quiet for a bit. He shoved his hands in his pockets, drew them out again, his movements agitated.

“I don’t know – how to do this,” he muttered. He clasped his hands in front of him. It took Nitori a second to realise that Rin was working his ring off his finger. It was his gem. An oval of carnelian, engraved with the image of an eagle.

“If you’ll accept my claim,” he said stiffly, holding the ring out to Nitori. “I’d be honoured.”

Nitori looked from the ring to Rin’s face in alarm.

“What?”

“I can…do it more formally…”

“I don’t want that!” Nitori said in a wavering voice.

Rin looked at the ring in his hand. He was silent for a moment and Nitori’s harsh words hung in the air between them.

“I don’t blame you,” Rin said quietly. “I’d make a bad choice.” He slid the ring back on his finger and lifted his head, meeting Nitori’s eye. “You’ll be happy with Shimada.”

“Just stop!” Nitori cried. “Why are you acting like this? I don’t want to be with Shimada-senpai!”

“I’m trying to fix what I did. I’m trying to do what’s best for you–”

“You don’t get to decide that!” Nitori reached for the bond in his mind. He saw from the way Rin tensed that he’d felt it. “You can’t just act the whole time like it isn’t there, and then decide on your own to get rid of it!” Nitori’s voice was shaking, he didn’t know where his strength was coming from, but he had his mother’s voice in his head, lessons she’d told him since he was little.

“You tried to to make it so that I couldn’t find you,” Nitori said, remembering the cold, numb feeling of the night before, walking in the dark. “I was looking for you,” he said, his gaze becoming unfocused as he tried to remember, tried to make sense of the fog his head had been in the night before. It was almost like the woods had been a dream.

“I know what I did was wrong–” Rin began.

“A bond can’t be just one person.” Nitori pressed his fist to his chest. “Even if you’re alpha, the bond doesn’t belong to you, it’s shared between everyone–”

“Yeah, and it fucks everything up!” Rin snarled, backing away. “I told myself I wasn’t going to get into this shit again. I can’t. I don’t know the first thing about looking after an omega–”

“I don’t need you to look after me!”

“That’s not what I meant,” Rin said with a growl of frustration.

“Don’t you know you’re supposed to look after each other? It’s equal,” Nitori cried, too carried away to hold back, his hands balled into shaky fists at his sides, his face flushed hot with emotion. Inwardly, he could feel his wolf, it was always like this in any intense situation he’d been in. The wolf had come forward into his mind’s eye, fur bristling, hackles raised, it seemed like Nitori was inside the wolf, seeing Rin through wolf’s eyes.

“If you hate having a bond with me then I don’t want it either!” he burst out.

“I don’t–” Rin clenched his teeth together. “I don’t hate it.”

“I’m sick of being a burden!”

“You’re not.”

“I am! All the time! You don’t want me around, you just want to be alone, but I don’t leave you alone, I follow you around everywhere, at training–”

“I want you to!” Rin shouted, silencing Nitori.

They stared at each other.

“I want you to,” Rin repeated, more quietly. He let out the rest of his breath through his nose.

“You shouldn’t just say that,” Nitori mumbled. “I don’t want to be your pack unless you want to be mine.”

“I do,” Rin said in a rough voice. “But it’s not that simple!”

“I told you, you’re my best friend.” Nitori hesitated. “And…I’m your friend?”

Rin stared at him for a moment, then suddenly he came forward, raised his hand jerkily to Nitori’s neck, completing the gesture that he’d shrunk back from the night before, his hand settling warm against Nitori’s skin.

“Then it’s simple,” Nitori said, his heart thumping in his throat under Rin’s fingers.

“I don’t want you to get hurt again because of me.” Rin tested his hold, his thumb rubbing at Nitori’s jaw. “But I don’t want you to go to Shimada.” His voice thickened as he said the other alpha’s name, becoming almost a growl. “I want…” He studied Nitori’s face, looked at his hand where it was on Nitori’s neck. “I know you should be with a better alpha, but I can’t let you go to him – I know it’s selfish. If I was a better alpha I’d let you go–”

“How can you say that?” Nitori put his hand over Rin’s wrist. “You and me have a bond, not me and him! Why is that selfish?”

“You know your family wouldn’t like this,” Rin said.

“Why not?” Nitori demanded. Did Rin really think Nitori's parents would disapprove of him having Rin for his best friend?

“Because we’re – rooming together,” Rin said. “And I’m…”

“What?”

Rin turned his head aside in frustration. “You’ve never had a bond with a person outside your family, have you? You don’t know what it’s like. You might think it’s what you want right now, but you could change your mind later and then you’ll wish you’d dissolved the bond sooner instead of letting it go on and getting deeper into it–”

“But I won’t change my mind,” Nitori said.

Rin looked at him, an unguarded, almost startled look, then his expression darkened once more, and maybe it was Nitori’s imagining, but his cheeks seemed faintly flushed.

“You’re young,” Rin muttered. “You don’t have experience with this. Things can go wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

Rin dropped his hand from Nitori’s neck. “Just wrong.” He shifted his stance, putting his hands on his hips, seeming weary all of a sudden. “Look. I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t make a bond with another person until I had my life in order, until I’d fulfilled my father’s dream. I said to myself I wasn’t going to do this again. This isn’t–” He looked at Nitori with a shake of his head. “It’s not fair on you. It would be smarter to break it off now before it gets any worse.”

Nitori reached out sharply, grabbing Rin’s wrist. “Don’t!” In his mind he’d seized the bond, rushed to it and crouched defensively over it. 

Rin’s hands taking him firmly by the shoulders served to bring Nitori back to the physical.

“Oi,” Rin said firmly. “I promised you I wouldn’t do that again. I won’t cut you off again, okay? It won’t be like that.”

Nitori pressed forward, unable to restrain himself, he pressed his face against Rin’s chest and rubbed his cheek and jaw, nuzzling Rin while Rin stood stiff with surprise.

“O-Oi…”

“Don’t touch our bond again!” Nitori said, looking up at Rin fiercely.

Rin stared down at him. “You don’t want me to touch it?”

“No!”

Rin arched an eyebrow. “Not at all?” Even as he spoke, Nitori felt the hot stir of Rin’s aura through the bond and it made Nitori’s chest go tight for a second, a pleasurable shock.

“L-Like that’s okay,” Nitori mumbled, avoiding Rin’s gaze. 

“Senpai,” he said more seriously. “Our bond won’t get in the way of your dream. My mom always says pack makes you stronger.” He stepped back and looked at Rin resolutely. “As your pack, I promise – I’ll help you to get to the Olympics! So you have to let me help you. And that means…you have to promise to listen if I tell you to stop swimming! You have to take a break from training if I say you need to rest! It’s not weakness to accept help from your best friend, even if I am an omega.”

Rin listened to this in silence, his mouth gradually curving in a reluctant smile.

“You want me to promise all that?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

“Say it.”

“I promise.”

“And you won’t move rooms?” Nitori said.

Rin snorted. “No.”

“And you won’t lie.”

Rin huffed a breath, his lips drawing back slightly, his eyes slanting away for a moment, but the look wasn’t one of irritation. It was chagrin.

“I promise,” he said in a low voice.

“Then I promise too,” Nitori said eagerly.

“No,” Rin said. “Your promise should be to think about this seriously–”

“I am!” Nitori said hotly, becoming impatient with Rin now. “I promise – I promise to honour my bond with my best friend!”

Rin’s brows drew slowly together. “So when you say…we’re best friends…”

“Because we are!”

“Yes,” Rin agreed plainly.

Nitori laughed. Everything he’d been feeling bad about had transformed into relief and lightness.

Rin shook his head slightly, frowning still, but it was like he was having to make himself look grumpy, and in his eyes was a different emotion.

He slid his hand round the back of Nitori’s neck, his fingers touching the clasp of the necklace that lay against Nitori’s neck, so Nitori’s gem stirred very slightly where it hung on his chest. Nitori shivered a little.

“But…I mean…” Rin dropped his gaze. “As well as being friends. You understand that we’re… that I…”

Someone knocked at the door.

Rin shut his eyes for a second in irritation.

The knock came again.

Rin went to the door.

Mikoshiba stood holding a plastic chair he must have got from the canteen.

He looked past Rin and spotted Nitori.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting,” he said.

Some sort of look seemed to pass between Mikoshiba and Rin.

“I’ll just leave this here,” Mikoshiba said.

Nitori came forward, only limping a little. The ache in his ankle was bearable.

“So you can walk on it okay,” Mikoshiba said, looking him over.

“Thanks for the chair,” Rin said, putting himself in front of Nitori.

“No problem,” the captain said.

Rin shut the door unceremoniously.

He turned slowly back to face Nitori and they considered one another. A shy smile broke across Nitori’s face. Swept up in relief, he could no longer restrain himself. He dived forward, butting his forehead against Rin’s chest again, pressing himself near with a small squeak.

Rin went back a step for balance, caught off-guard again, but he stood still and accepted the gesture, and after a moment he touched Nitori’s hair and his ears and his neck, light, unpracticed touches, wolf touches.

Nitori hummed and sniffed Rin’s skin through his vest, rubbed his face there briefly before leaning back to gaze up at Rin.

Rin studied his face searchingly. He touched Nitori’s cheek, he smoothed his thumb along Nitori’s eyebrow like he’d done in the dark the night before. He blinked a few times and then broke his gaze away.

“So, uh. Did you want to shower?”

Nitori nodded eagerly. “But I can stand. I don’t need that chair.”

“You might slip. You should use it.”

“Okay,” Nitori said reluctantly.

“Do you want… I can carry you?” Rin said.

“That’s alright.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I can walk okay.” And Nitori stepped back to show him. When Rin saw that the ankle was supporting his weight alright, he conceded.

He got Nitori’s wash bag off the dresser and found him a towel from the cupboard. He carried the chair down the passage and Nitori followed along behind him. There was nobody around. Nitori wondered how late in the morning it was.

They reached the showers and Rin set the chair in the stall. Nitori’s ankle had started to throb and he was grateful not to have to stand after all.

“I’ll…wait outside,” Rin said, backing out.

Closed in stall, Nitori pushed his shorts and briefs down and set them aside, then put the water on and sat, soaping himself, scrubbing vigorously to clean the dirt off. The warm spray beat down on his shoulders. He tipped his head back and sat grinning as the water rushed over him.

~*~

Nitori had had every intention of hurrying to the canteen the moment class ended, but his teacher delayed him for several minutes, making him stay and talk through the homework assignment he’d missed the day before.

Even as quickly as Nitori walked, he still had to cross the length of the school to get to the canteen, so the lunch hour had been underway for a good fifteen minutes by the time he reached the spot where he and Rin had agreed to meet.

He hurried down the stairs from the science labs, anticipating that Rin would be there waiting for him at the bottom of the steps.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked around.

“Nitori.”

Nitori turned. It wasn’t Rin who had called him, but Shimada. He’d been standing with his back to the stairs, watching the comings and goings down the corridor, so Nitori hadn’t noticed him immediately, and it was Rin Nitori had been expecting to see, his eyes had been searching for Rin, his mind had been full of him, so he was unprepared to find himself presented with Shimada instead.

“I know, I’m not who you were expecting to see,” Shimada said, rescuing Nitori, who’d been too taken aback even to utter a greeting.

“Where’s Matsuoka-senpai?” Nitori said, thoroughly flustered. His thoughts flew to the day before, Shimada kissing him under the trees, and his face began to redden and his eyes darted to Shimada’s mouth before he could stop himself.

“He was here,” Shimada said. “I came looking for you, but I found him instead. We had a bit of a talk – civilized this time, don’t worry.”

Nitori shook his head slightly, uncomprehending.

“He told me–” Shimada moved a little closer, to overcome the noise being made by the boys near the canteen. “He told me what happened. I hope – you’ll let me apologise for–”

Nitori had to move out of the way as well as some boys were coming down the stairs, and it was a very awkward place to be trying to talk, here at the juncture of the stairwell, the corridor and the canteen’s entrance.

“Where did he go?” Nitori asked, as he and Shimada were for a moment made to stand very close together, and Shimada’s hand went to Nitori’s elbow briefly to steady him. Nitori drew away again quickly, as soon as there was room enough that he wouldn’t collide with anyone passing.

Shimada moved back as well.

“He told me to tell you he’d gone back to the dorms.”

“Why?” Nitori said weakly, and then not waiting for an answer, “I’m sorry, I should–”

“Nitori.” Shimada did nothing to keep him there except hold up his hand. “He left to give me a chance to talk to you.” He hesitated. “Do you mind – if we go somewhere quieter?”

Nitori shifted where he stood, replying with everything but words, feeling cornered.

“I’ve ambushed you,” Shimada said regretfully. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to apologise. When I made up my mind to talk to you last night, I hadn’t planned to–” His eyes copied what Nitori’s eyes had done, an involuntary glance, the kiss conjured up again.

“I called Yuka and told her,” Shimada said.

Nitori’s eyes widened. “What did she say?”

“Uh.” Shimada rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, she broke up with me.”

“No!” Nitori forgot his self-consciousness in his distress. “You have to tell her it was a mistake!”

“But it wasn’t a mistake,” Shimada said. “I mean. I should have realised what was happening sooner. With the time we were spending together. I know it wasn’t fair to her. I hurt her and I know it was wrong. But – I like you, Nitori. I know how much you care about Matsuoka, but if there was any way–”

Another group of boys came clattering down the stairs, their loud voices disrupting everything, and Shimada turned his head aside in frustration, waiting until they’d passed.

“I just wondered – if there was any chance you’d consider going out with me?”

Nitori’s heart was in his throat. “Shimada-senpai, I – I–”

“Do you really want a bond with someone like that?” Shimada said in a rush of frustration. “After that stunt he pulled last night?”

Nitori was thinking about Rin. Rin, standing waiting for him at the place they’d agreed to meet. Rin, seeing Shimada. The two alphas facing off again and the conversation that must have followed. Rin giving up his place and leaving Shimada to meet Nitori instead, to make the case against him. Rin hadn’t even stuck around to argue for himself.

“He thinks you’ll talk me out of the bond,” Nitori said in realisation.

“He’s letting me try, anyway–”

The certainty and calm that had been the result of the morning’s conversation with Rin, and that had fled temporarily at the sight of Shimada, now returned. Nitori could easily imagine what Rin was doing at that moment. He saw him, sitting alone in their room, passively awaiting the outcome.

Instead of causing him upset or anger, the realisation only produced a powerful, affectionate exasperation in Nitori.

“Senpai…” he said under his breath, shaking his head.

“–for all the good it’ll do,” Shimada murmured.

Nitori recalled his immediate situation with a flash of remorse.

“Shimada-senpai–”

“No, it’s okay,” Shimada laughed, sounding a little worn out. “I knew from the start you were his.” His mouth assumed a softer smile. “Do you think we can keep being friends?”

“Yes, of course,” Nitori said, reaching out to clasp Shimada’s hand in both of his. “Will you try and make things up with Yuka-chan?”

“I don’t know,” Shimada said. “Go on, I know you want to go. Just – if you need someone to talk to…if anything like last night happens again–”

“It won’t,” Nitori said. He squeezed Shimada’s hand gently and then let go.

“I hope not,” Shimada said.

~*~

Rin had been sitting on the lower bunk. He lurched to his feet the moment the door opened. His face was full of stony determination as he turned to face Nitori.

“I thought we were going to have lunch?” Nitori said as he closed the door.

Rin opened and then shut his mouth, caught off-guard, as if this trivial matter should be long-forgotten, and not what he’d been expecting Nitori to open with.

“Uh,” he said. “I…got sandwiches.” And he looked quickly to his desk where his bag hung over the back of the chair. He looked back at Nitori.

“What kind?” Nitori said.

Rin stood unmoving, still looking as if the conversation was nothing like what he’d been bracing himself for. He answered after a moment, “Ham and lettuce. Cheese and lettuce?” He wavered. “I mean. You like that, right?”

Nitori nodded, smiling. He stood gazing at Rin.

Rin’s frown deepened. He put his hands in his trouser pockets. “Didn’t you – talk to Shimada? He wanted to talk to you, didn’t you see him?”

“Yes.” Nitori took his bag off. He passed Rin and sat down on the lower bunk, where Rin had been sitting. “I’m starving, can we eat?”

Rin remained immobilized for a few seconds longer, then he turned away with stiff motions, for once lacking that athletic grace in movement that came naturally to him, and he picked up his bag and unzipped it. He took out three packs of sandwiches, two juice cartons. He passed these to Nitori, who piled them on the bed.

“I got an extra one. If you were hungry…” Rin watched Nitori warily.

“Thanks!” Nitori drew his legs up and settled himself comfortably, ripping into one of the sandwich boxes. He’d missed breakfast, as well as dinner the night before.

Rin sunk down to sit in the desk chair.

Nitori handed a pack of sandwiches over. Rin sat holding it between his hands, unopened, watching Nitori.

“Mm. S’good,” Nitori said between mouthfuls. Rin’s eyes followed his fingers as he picked out a piece of salad and put it in his mouth and chewed. The focus of such a gaze would probably have been uncomfortable to a non-wolf, but between wolves, sharing food was not a neutral act, and Rin’s attention wasn’t strange.

Nitori finished his sandwich and drunk some juice. It was apple juice, sweet and cold. Nitori swallowed until the sides of the carton depressed and the straw made a gurgling noise inside, then he set the empty carton aside and sighed in satisfaction.

Rin was a silent, brooding presence in front of him. Nitori licked his lips. Rin opened up his sandwich and held one half out to Nitori.

“Are you sure?”

“I got extra for you,” Rin mumbled.

Nitori ate slower this time.

“I don’t understand,” Rin said after a little while. “I thought… He said he was going to make a claim?”

“Yes…” Nitori took another big bite.

“But–” Rin repositioned his arms restlessly, looking uncomfortably boxed in by the chair’s armrests. “He didn’t explain properly? He wants– You know he wants to be alpha to you? Right?”

Nitori was beginning to blush despite himself. He swallowed thickly and then nodded.

“Mn.”

He’d finished the sandwich. He eyed the other half in Rin’s hand. Rin handed it over mechanically, his focus unwavering.

“And you said…no.”

Nitori nodded. Rin sat back in the chair.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Nitori said.

“Nitori. Are you sure about this? If this is about keeping your promise you made this morning–”

“We did promise,” Nitori said sharply, pinning Rin with a sever look. The bond was pulled taut, bright and alive between them. “We both did. I’m going to look after you now, Senpai.”

Rin sat forward with a jerk. “ _You_ look after _me_?” He gestured between them.

Nitori nodded once and went on eating.

“No, _I_ look after _you_ ,” Rin said. Then he turned his head aside sharply. “I mean–” He sat stiffly, his hands between his knees, his fingers twisting his ring on his finger. He surged to his feet, pacing to the window, turned, came back to stand in front of Nitori.

“I don’t think you’re thinking this through.”

“I’m full now.” Nitori dusted the crumbs off his trousers onto the carpet, careful not to get any on Rin’s bed.

“ _Nitori,_ ” Rin said angrily.

Nitori tried and failed to suppress a yawn, thoroughly sated, thoroughly drowsy. He hid his mouth behind his hand.

“Can we scent mark?” he mumbled.

“What?” Rin said, blinking.

“Like last night?” Nitori said.

Scent marking was what people close to one another did. Nitori felt no reservations in asking for this, seeing as he and Rin shared a bond. It was his due.

“Oh. Okay,” Rin said. “If you…want to?”

Nitori passed his hand over the pillow on Rin's bed, which their heads had shared the night before. He leant down and snuffed at the pillowcase, and though his own scent was largely hidden underneath Rin's, he could still pick it out.

"Bring my duvet down, Senpai," he said, speaking thickly around another yawn.

Rin reached up and gathered Nitori’s duvet from the upper bunk. He stood uncertainly holding the duvet in his arms while Nitori struggled out of his school blazer.

“Did you go to class?” Nitori said, lying down and settling his head on Rin’s pillow.

Rin hadn’t been wearing his blazer, so he had nothing else to do but join Nitori after he’d given him the duvet.

“Senpai?”

“Yeah, I went,” Rin grumbled, kneeling on the bed. “You think you’re going to be checking up on me now? I get enough of that from Mikoshiba…”

“You need to keep your studies up. You need it for your dream,” Nitori said drowsily while Rin spread out the duvet over them.

Nitori nuzzled Rin’s chest and sighed with a grumble in his throat.

Rin lay stiffly for a while, breathing in a tight, suppressed way that meant he was consciously trying to be quiet.

“Was that enough?” he said gruffly. “Food, I mean?”

Nitori stretched and relaxed, saying, “More than enough.” Sleep was pulling at him irresistibly.

Rin’s arm settled over Nitori, stiff and uncertain. His knuckles slowly brushed the side of Nitori’s neck.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Rin said in a low voice.

Nitori huffed. Rin’s hand went to the back of his neck, lightly squeezing and kneading, faltering at first, then taking up a slow rhythm.

“Senpai,” Nitori mumbled, halfway towards sleep. “You’ll let me stay, won’t you.”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Nitori said. “I’ll make good decisions for us.”

Rin’s hand stilled. “I can make good decisions,” he said, the sharpness of his voice threatening to disrupt the warm, dreamy atmosphere that had been blanketing Nitori.

Nitori shifted round to lie on his back, his head tipped back and a little to the side.

“I can,” Rin said fiercely.

Nitori touched Rin’s arm and Rin looked down at him and his frown faded, understanding and some embarrassment coming into his expression as he recognised Nitori’s pose as an invitation.

“You want to start?”

Nitori nodded.

“Oh, okay...” Rin shifted so he was leaning up on his elbow, over Nitori. “You’re really sure about this?” His hand was already touching softly along Nitori’s jaw. His fingers brushed very lightly against the scent glands on one side of the neck and then the other and Nitori’s cheeks soon grew hot. He shut his eyes and tried to tell himself that this like any other time he’d done scent marking with family members. But Rin’s fingers were _Rin’s_ , and no matter how hard Nitori tried, he couldn’t forget that it was Rin touching him so intimately.

Nitori’s glands responded almost at once to the stimulation, his scent coming suddenly strong, and it would be all over Rin’s fingers, Rin was breathing the smell of him.

It was nothing like scent marking with family. It was something completely different.

“Okay?” Rin murmured, his voice lower than it had been before, his fingers and thumb brushing lightly over the glands, and Nitori had never bared his neck like this to someone outside his family. Rin had to feel how his pulse was racing.

Nitori peered up at Rin from under heavy eyelids. Rin’s nostril were flared, he was breathing through his nose and not his mouth. Nitori felt a little embarrassed at how thickly his scent was perfuming the air between them.

“Senpai…” Nitori shifted his head fitfully against the pillow. “Is it…too much?”

Rin seemed to take a moment to process Nitori’s words. He blinked a few times, his hand motionless now, holding Nitori’s throat.

“No, it’s good,” he said roughly. He bent his head and nosed under Nitori’s jaw. He began to growl.

Nitori’s body froze, a pins-and-needles feeling shocking his nerves, jolting him fully awake.

The pulsing growl cut off as abruptly as it had begun and Rin put his face into the curve of Nitori’s neck, mumbling,

“Sorry. It’s okay.” He rubbed his nose and mouth and chin into Nitori’s neck to reassure him. He snuffed at Nitori’s neck, one side and then the other, tilting his head, leaning over Nitori to reach, and the rich tumble of Rin’s scent spilt over Nitori like a silk scarf falling open over his face.

“We shouldn’t do…too much,” Rin breathed, “the first time.” His hand was round the back of Nitori’s neck, he tilted Nitori’s head gently on the pillow so he could put his nose to Nitori’s gland.

The alpha scent of him was intoxicating, the solid weight of his body over Nitori comforting on some level Nitori didn’t understand. The wolf inside him was responding and Nitori felt almost like he was watching from a point of removal.

He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but then Rin was leaning up on his elbow above Nitori, looking down at him with dark eyes.

“Ai?” He touched Nitori’s chin with his thumb, just shy of his mouth, then he felt Nitori’s cheek where his skin was blushing hot.

Nitori’s mouth and gums felt a little numb, like he really was drunk.

“You okay?” Rin murmured.

“Yeah,” Nitori said softly. He touched his face, felt his own blushing cheeks, then touched his lips. Rin watched him do it.

“Feels strange…” Nitori said.

“Do you want to open the window for a while?”

Nitori shook his head slowly, his hand dropping to rest on the pillow by his head, fingers loosely curled.

Rin touched him under the jaw again. “We should stop.”

“Can we do this everyday?” Nitori said, tipping his head back and closing his eyes as Rin nosed at his neck again.

Rin began to growl again, softly. “If you want.”

Nitori’s heartbeat had jumped with the sound and Rin swallowed and Nitori could hear him trying to stifle himself and failing.

“I like your scent,” he said, the words muffled against Nitori’s skin.

Nitori dozed, all the tension and care gone out of him. He resurfaced as Rin manoeuvred him onto his side, then was soon half-asleep again, with Rin pressed close against his back, his arm over Nitori’s waist.

“You falling asleep?” Rin murmured after an indeterminable stretch of minutes. His breath puffed softly against the nape of Nitori’s neck.

Nitori made a small croaky noise of denial. Rin snorted.

Another silence.

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” Rin said quietly.

Nitori felt Rin’s touch through the bond, Rin’s physical presence behind him, warm and solid along Nitori’s back, the weight of his arm draped over Nitori’s ribs, their scents mixed in a warm invisible fog around them.

“Ai?” Rin murmured.

“Mm?”

“I haven’t told anybody this,” Rin said in a muffled voice, his mouth half-hidden against Nitori’s neck. “When I was younger, when I went away to train…” 

Rin broke off. His breath huffed against Nitori’s skin. Nitori stared ahead at the wall, alert now, keeping very still, his body frozen and listening because Rin so rarely talked about that time.

“When I left Japan,” Rin went on, “I left something behind. I wasn’t whole. Do you understand?” He drew his hand out from under Nitori’s and he sat up, pulling the duvet with him.

Nitori turned on his back and looked at Rin’s back, the tense set of his shoulders.

“I didn’t know what I’d done,” Rin said. “It was like I landed in Australia and I’d just become a fuck-up at everything. I knew I was going to be on my own, I thought I was prepared. But being on my own like that all of a sudden… I couldn’t adjust. I couldn’t swim like before. I was an idiot. I didn’t realise how much I’d been relying on other people. I’d made myself weak.” 

Rin’s hand resting on his knee was clenched in a tight fist.

“I didn’t know how to be on my own,” he said, his voice becoming rougher. “For an alpha, if you can’t stand on your own two feet – you’re nothing. It took me a long time to re-learn how to be alone.”

Rin lowered his head. “I can’t go back to being weak like I was back then. Do you understand?”

Nitori sat up, the mattress creaking quietly in the silence.

“My family taught me…pack makes an alpha strong?” he said hesitantly.

Rin’s shoulders drew up, frustration and resignation written clearly in his posture.

“You’re not alpha. I shouldn’t expect you to understand,” he muttered.

Nitori felt woefully out of his depth. He chewed the side of his thumb.

Thinking about Nanase-san and the other boys from Rin’s past made Nitori feel like he was trying to look in on a private scene, spying through a window, only gathering a dim impression of things that he couldn’t understand. It made him feel like an interloper, excluded. And that petty envy in turn made him feel like a child.

Nitori hadn’t noticed that Rin had turned to look at him again.

Nitori had been rubbing the inside of his wrist idly against his throat and smelling his own scent. He stopped as he became aware of Rin’s gaze. He was embarrassed to be caught at it, comforting himself that way. He couldn’t work out what was in Rin’s look as he regarded him.

“You deserve a better alpha,” Rin said, shaking his head. “But you won’t listen. And _he_ won’t listen–” Rin’s jaw snapped tight shut. It was obvious who ‘he’ was – Rin was referring to his wolf.

There was a dangerous light in Rin’s eyes as he turned and came closer to Nitori. He planted his hand on the pillow behind Nitori, bringing their faces close.

“Wouldn’t leave me alone for a goddamn minute,” Rin said hotly. “You knew really, didn’t you?”

Nitori gave a tiny shake of his head.

“Yes you did,” Rin said, scowling. He leaned in closer and his cheek brushed Nitori’s and he was smelling Nitori. “He’s been…driving me crazy,” Rin said roughly, sounding a little dazed.

With Rin’s nose near his ear, Nitori could hear the quick snuffing breaths Rin was taking, cataloguing Nitori’s scent. Trying to be reassuring, Nitori followed instinct and nuzzled his cheek against Rin’s.

He wasn’t at all expecting the hot, slick glide of Rin’s tongue against the hinge of his jaw.

Nitori started back with a squawk and began to giggle, lifting his hand automatically to wipe his face.

“Senpai!”

Rin blinked at him, his eyes dark and a little unfocused, lips loose and parted.

“Sorry,” he said dazedly.

Nitori laughed again and darted in, butting his cheek against Rin’s playfully, like he’d do when playing with his young cousins. Just like that the insecurity faded. Whatever had happened with Rin and his old swim team, it was separate from the bond he had with Nitori. That was just between the two of them.

“Things are going to be okay now,” Nitori said, nosing gently at Rin’s throat, breathing the wonderful smell of them. “You’ll see!”

~*~


	6. Chapter 6

Rin’s history textbook and his blazer smelled like another omega. Nitori didn’t like it.

The name of the omega was Chiba Masayuki. He sat next to Rin in history. Nitori knew this because he’d asked Rin about it.

It wasn’t the first time Nitori had picked up this particular scent on Rin. Before now it had always been faint enough to be innocuous, it had simply blended into the background unobtrusively, as it should. It was an easy accident to brush another boy’s blazer if you sat next to them in class.

But the familiar mixture of smells that Rin brought home with him at the end of each day had never bothered Nitori before, and now, for some reason, this quiet odor coming into their room on Rin’s clothing had become almost intolerable. It seemed to sting Nitori’s nose, impossible to ignore.

Rin grunted quietly as he stretched his spine, turning his head this way and that and throwing down his pencil onto his textbook.

“I’m almost done with this.” He turned in his seat to look at Nitori, who was on the floor. “How about you?”

Nitori blinked, snapped out of his thoughts, his gaze breaking off from Rin’s blazer which was hanging over the back of his chair. The blazer that smelled just a bit of Chiba Masayuki.

“Um.” Nitori looked guiltily down at his notebook in his lap. He’d done nothing in the last twenty minutes.

Rin turned his watch on his wrist to check the time. “Maybe I can still get a swim in with you before I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“Library.” Rin sighed and pushed away from the desk, rising to his feet without enthusiasm. “I’ve got that shitty group project stuff, remember?”

“For history?”

“Yeah.” Rin went and sat on his bed. “Probably be a couple of hours. Get this bullshit over with. Why do teachers think they’re doing you some favour or something forcing you to work in a group. Like they want you to get all buddy-buddy with these random assholes you don’t even want to talk to.”

“You like Masayuki-kun,” Nitori said.

“Masayuki? He’s alright I guess. Come here.” Rin made a small motion with his chin, indicating he wanted Nitori to get up on the bed too. He probably wanted to scent mark.

Nitori stayed sitting where he was, his hands busy putting his stuff back into his pencil case. “You lent him your book. He must be nice.”

“Why do you have so much shit?” Rin muttered, distracted with watching Nitori sort through his collection of coloured pens for note-making.

“It smells,” Nitori blurted out.

“What?”

“That.” Nitori pointed to Rin’s desk. The history textbook was sitting on top of a stack of other books. “Also your blazer.”

Rin snorted. He was quiet for a bit. Then he said, “They smell?”

Nitori nodded and went on struggling with the zipper on his pencil case. He could only get it to close halfway.

“Smells like what? Masayuki?” Rin said.

Nitori shrugged.

“You don’t like that?” Rin said. “Are you jealous?”

Nitori lifted his head sharply. “No!”

“You don’t like my stuff smelling like an omega,” Rin said. He was sitting forward with his elbows resting casually on his knees.

“I didn’t say that!”

Rin rubbed at his mouth, hiding his smile. He settled back on the bed. “Come here.”

Nitori stayed stubbornly where he was.

“Come here or something bad is going to happen to Arturo.” Rin held up the stuffed toy that belonged to Nitori, Arturo the beagle. It had somehow found its way onto Rin’s bunk.

“Hey!” Nitori yelped, scrambling to his feet.

“Your fault for leaving him here.”

“Give him back!”

Rin leant away, holding Arturo out of reach.

“It’s too late, you took too long.”

“Senpai!” Nitori was clambering over Rin, grabbing for the toy.

“Arturo says he wants to live with me now.”

“No he doesn’t!”

They’d been falling into this the last couple of weeks, it had just started one day – play-fighting like cubs, nipping, growling, tussling – and because it was play Nitori had even gotten the better of Rin a couple of times.

“Okay, okay–”

Nitori lay over Rin, pinning Rin’s wrist to his chest. Rin was still managing to keep Arturo out of reach in his other hand. His chest rose and fell under Nitori, both of them breathless.

Even if it was just pretend, as an omega, it was undeniably exhilarating to be over an alpha like this, with Rin pretending like he had no option other than to yield. It was very different to the play-fights Nitori had with his little cousins.

Rin flexed his fingers where they were trapped against his chest, Nitori’s hands clamped over his wrist and elbow, holding him pinned.

“What are your demands?” Rin said.

“Give me Arturo!”

Rin shifted his weight a little under Nitori, so Nitori swayed and had to lean more weight on Rin’s arm and chest to keep bearing down on him. He could feel the muscle and power of Rin under him, how easily Rin could throw him off.

“Senpai,” he said warningly. “Don’t try anything!”

Rin grinned suddenly, the brilliance of the expression almost startling.

“You growled at me.”

“I didn’t,” Nitori said in alarm, dropping out of character.

“Yeah you did.”

“I didn’t!”

They were quiet for a bit, getting their breath back, watching each other warily like the fight might pick up again, but the boisterous playful mood had changed, signaling an intermission.

“You want to?” Rin murmured, laying Arturo aside on the duvet, and as he looked up at Nitori his eyes were watchful and dark and soft, the way they got when they were scent marking.

Nitori had let go of Rin’s arm, leaning on Rin’s shoulders instead. He could feel how warm Rin’s skin was through his shirt. He shifted back, taking his weight off him, shy suddenly, unsure why.

Rin braced himself up on his elbow and followed him as Nitori drew back.

Before Nitori could say or do anything, Rin was nosing at the collar of his t-shirt, then sniffing up his neck, his nose brushing Nitori’s skin occasionally.

“You smell like you want to.”

Nitori knew he was responding already and Rin hadn't even touched his glands yet. Nitori leant closer, resting his head against Rin’s.

“Okay,” he said.

Rin nudged his cheek against Nitori’s. “So put your scent on me.”

Nitori was silent, not fully understanding. He wasn’t as experienced with all this, whereas Rin had probably done this sort of thing before with wolves outside his family.

“You don’t want me smelling like some other omega, do you?” Rin said.

Nitori found himself tensing up, the energy of the wolf crackling and bristling inside him.

Rin huffed a quiet laugh. "So then?” he goaded.

Nitori shifted on his knees so he was sitting more comfortably on Rin. Rin’s hand rested briefly on his hip to steady him.

Nitori’s determination wavered for a moment as he had to admit the limits of his knowledge. “How do I…?” He faltered. “Should I touch myself?”

Rin’s lips parted. He stared at Nitori. He nodded once.

Nitori felt himself blushing and sternly tried to tell himself to stop being childish. This was just a different way to do scent marking.

Rin’s eyes followed his every move as Nitori touched himself under his jaw, probing gently with his fingers, stimulating the glands.

It happened quickly, the fight with Rin had got him worked up. The smell was on his fingers, the glands producing all at once. Nitori had done this before, on his own, privately. But he’d never produced scent with the aim of marking someone with it. He’d always let Rin take charge when they did this together.

Nitori looked at Rin uncertainly, and Rin lifted his chin a little, a silent invitation.

Nitori reached out and touched his fingers to Rin's neck. He wiped his scent on Rin’s warm skin. He felt Rin's eyes on him.

“Again,” Rin said in a slightly rough voice, when Nitori paused.

Nitori touched his glands again, they felt very slightly achy, a bit swollen under the fingertips, which was normal when producing scent. Nitori wiped his fingers and knuckles and the palms of his hands, picking up the scent off his skin.

He touched Rin's neck again, and Rin remained passive, letting him touch as he wanted.

Marking Rin in this blatant way, and so soon after their play-fight, it was hard to ignore the undercurrents of dominance.

Nitori touched Rin’s face, his cheeks, he passed his fingers lightly along his jaw. Rin let him.

Nitori brushed his fingers across Rin's forehead, his eyebrow. Rin closed his eyes as Nitori’s finger travelled down the bridge of his nose.

Nitori lowered his hand and Rin slowly opened his eyes.

Rin smelled of him now, undeniably. Nitori's heart was pounding and he didn't know why exactly. Maybe it was the knowledge that when Rin left the room, he'd take Nitori’s scent with him, and anyone he met would be able to smell Nitori on him.

“Better?” Rin said, a scratchiness in his voice.

Nitori stared back at him, feeling like he should say something, but his mind was weirdly blank.

Rin began to lean forward, and at first Nitori thought he was going to smell his neck again. But instead Rin kissed his mouth.

Nitori lurched back, banging his head on the slats of the top bunk. He pressed a hand to his skull where it hurt as he scrambled away, putting himself across the room.

“Ai.” Rin clambered up after him, catching hold of his hand. “Are you okay?”

“Why did you do that?” Nitori cried.

“What?”

“Why – did you–” Nitori looked away, looked everywhere but at Rin.

“Why did I kiss you?” Rin said.

Nitori nodded quickly.

“Because,” Rin said in measured tones, like Nitori was the one behaving strangely, “you’re my boyfriend. And I wanted to kiss you.” 

The bedroom was silent for a few seconds. Nitori dropped his hand from his head.

“I’m sorry if I went too fast,” Rin said. “I didn’t mean to freak you out–”

“Boyfriend?” Nitori echoed.

Rin met his gaze, frowning. “Yes?”

“But…we’re not– We’re – not–”

Rin shifted slightly where he stood, then he went very still. “What?”

Nitori returned his gaze with blank disbelief.

“What are you talking about?” Rin pulled Nitori by the hand, drawing him nearer. “Don’t you like that word or something? You don’t want to call it that?”

“You said – y-you said you didn’t want me as your boyfriend–”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did!” Nitori pulled his hand free. “You said I should get it through my head–”

“What are you talking about? We went over that, you know that was just bullshit. Why are you bringing all that up again?”

Their bond was roiling and pitching like it was a stormy ocean between them.

Nitori had his head down, his eyes fixed on the carpet.

“What do you think we’ve been doing this whole time? Look at me.” Rin put a knuckle under Nitori’s chin.

Nitori pushed Rin’s hand away. “You’re just pretending because you think you have to!”

“Pretending? Do you think I just go around kissing people I don’t like because I think I have to?” Rin said angrily.

“You don’t want me for your boyfriend!”

“What the fuck!” Rin held out his hands at his sides. “Do you know what I want better than I do?”

Nitori pushed past Rin and went to the bed.

“Ai.”

Nitori climbed up the ladder to the top bunk. He gathered his duvet around him and pressed himself into the back corner where the two walls met. He drew the duvet tight around him, curled up tight with his eyes shut.

It felt safe, and he almost had the illusion of being out of the situation.

His breath soon made the air uncomfortably warm and clammy against his face under the duvet and he felt too hot all over, but he stayed as he was, breathing into the duvet fisted up in his hands.

The bed frame creaked as Rin put a foot on the lower bunk and stood up, putting his arm over the rail.

“Oi. Are you seriously going to hide up there?”

Nitori curled up tighter, squeezing his face against his arms.

“I thought when we talked–” Rin broke off. “You said you wanted to stay bonded with me, I thought we both felt the same way. I didn’t know you thought it was just as friends.”

Nitori breathed shallowly in the dark under the duvet, his chest tight.

“Right,” Rin said quietly after a stretch of silence. “I’m sorry. I’ve been an idiot.”

He got down off the bed. Nitori heard nothing for a while. He imagined Rin was just standing there.

Finally there came the sound of Rin sighing, then quiet noises as he moved about the room. Nitori heard him over by his desk, the sound of him zipping up his school bag.

“I’ve got to go to this thing,” Rin said. “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

When Nitori made no answer, remaining immobile in his cocoon, Rin’s footsteps crossed the bedroom and he went over to the door.

“All that stuff I said was bullshit,” Rin said. “When I was pissed off about my shoulder. I was just taking it out on you.”

There was another pause, then the sound of the door clicking shut.

Nitori did nothing for several seconds. Then he pulled the stifling duvet off his head and turned to look at the empty room. He blinked in surprise as he saw what Rin had left propped against the bed’s guardrail – Arturo. 

Nitori picked up the stuffed animal and tucked it under the duvet with him. He stroked Arturo’s soft ears and looked blankly ahead. Then he lifted the toy to his nose and found it smelled a little of Rin from its time on Rin’s bed.

He slid down to lie on his side, holding the toy against his chest.

~*~

Nitori could hear from Rin’s breathing that he was asleep.

He’d returned late from the library and Nitori had pretended to be asleep when he came in. Rin hadn’t tried to wake him, he’d just changed for bed and put the lights out.

Nitori had been terrified of the thought of picking up their conversation, so he expected to feel relieved when Rin didn’t force the issue. But he didn’t feel relieved at all.

He lay awake, staring at the dark ceiling.

_“Because you’re my boyfriend. And I wanted to kiss you.”_

Nitori screwed his face up and put his hands over his eyes, trying not to think, but then he saw Rin’s face again, that look of total bewilderment he’d worn. He remembered how it had felt being over Rin, marking Rin’s neck and face with his scent, seeing Rin’s unguarded expression as he leant forward. The brief moment when their lips had touched.

Nitori relaxed his face with a muted sigh. He touched his fingers to his mouth.

_“Do you think I just go around kissing people I don’t like because I think I have to?”_

He turned over to face the wall, pushing his face into the duvet. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible that Rin felt this.

Nitori pushed the duvet aside and sat up. He climbed down the ladder, feeling his way in the dark.

Rin was a dark shape on the lower bunk. Nitori could see he had his arm thrown across his eyes.

“Senpai?” Nitori whispered, standing awkwardly at the bedside.

Rin shifted under the duvet. He drew his arm away from his face and lifted his head off the pillow. “Hmn? What is it? What’s wrong?” he said, his voice rough with sleep.

“Can I–” Nitori rubbed his arms, gooseflesh on his skin from the cool air. “Can I sleep by you please?”

“What?” Rin pushed up onto his elbows, squinting at Nitori in the dark.

“Can I sleep by you?”

Rin was silent. Nitori regretted waking him. He should have stayed in his own bed.

Rin rubbed his face with his hand.

“Yeah,” he said. He shifted over a bit and lifted up the corner of the duvet.

Nitori climbed quickly onto the bed, wriggled under the duvet, dark and close, Rin’s body right there, warm against him.

Rin shifted around a bit, then he lay his head down on the pillow, their faces close in the dark.

“You okay?” Rin murmured.

Nitori reached his hand out under the duvet and met Rin’s hand, their knuckles bumping. He reached up and touched Rin’s chin. He touched Rin’s lips. They were warm under his fingertips, the flesh very soft, yielding to the tentative touch.

In the dark, Nitori leant close and took his fingers away, pressed a kiss where his fingers had been.

Rin remained perfectly still.

Nitori drew back, but not by much. Rin’s breath puffed warm against his lips. Nitori kissed him again, their noses bumping gently. Rin drew away and Nitori tried to follow him.

“You don’t have to–” Rin said. Their lips touched again. Nitori had his hand against Rin’s chest under the duvet. Rin bumped his knee against Nitori’s. He got his arm under him and leant up, breaking them apart again, and Nitori made an unhappy sound and reached for him.

“Are you sure–?” Rin breathed, turning his head so Nitori couldn’t find his mouth, and blindly Nitori kissed Rin’s cheek and the edge of his mouth. 

“Ai?” Rin’s mouth bumped against his and then their lips were meeting and parting unsteadily, kissing light and clumsy. Rin’s hand slid up the back of Nitori’s neck into his hair.

Nitori was quickly out of his depth. He’d never kissed someone before like this.

His found himself pressed back against the pillow, Rin over him, kissing him, so Nitori’s lips felt like they were burning. A little overwhelmed, Nitori tipped his head back, exposing his neck to Rin like he did when they were scent marking, falling back on the familiar.

Rin buried his face in Nitori’s neck, pressing kisses to his neck. He kissed under Nitori’s jaw, found the gland with his mouth and licked it. The sensation of it shocked through Nitori’s body.

“S-Senpai–” 

Rin went still suddenly, his breathing paused, then abruptly he sat back, and the place on Nitori’s neck where he’d licked him felt cool with the slight stir of air.

Rin pushed his hand through his hair, raking it away from his face. “Sorry.”

Nitori sat up as well.

“I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s okay,” Nitori said. He found himself leaning in, drawn in breathing Rin’s scent.

“We don’t have to–” Rin spoke haltingly as Nitori drew closer. “If you just want to be friends – if that’s what you want, we can–” He broke off as Nitori touched his jaw.

Nitori’s fingertip drifted lower in a tentative caress. He lightly stroked Rin’s glands, too shy to do what Rin had done and kiss there, taste there.

“I don’t…just want to be friends,” Nitori breathed. 

He felt the shift of Rin’s Adam’s apple against his palm as Rin swallowed.

“Alright,” Rin said roughly. 

Nitori’s touch might not have been confident, but it was having an effect. Rin’s alpha smell was making the air thick, and Nitori felt like he was in a trance, growing steadily more intoxicated. 

Rin went on sitting there, tolerating Nitori’s gentle exploration of that most intimate place on his neck, until finally with a sudden movement he reached up and caught hold of Nitori’s wrist.

“Are you trying to drive me crazy,” he murmured. He closed the distance between them, rubbed his cheek against Nitori’s in the way wolves touched, then he kissed Nitori’s blushing cheek, ducked his head to put his face to Nitori’s neck again, kissed him there again.

Nitori found himself lying back and then Rin was over him, his hand on Nitori’s jaw guiding his face to bring their mouths together and they started kissing again and Rin pressed against him, rubbing his scent on him, stroking Nitori under jaw.

“Tell me,” Rin said thickly, “tell me to stop – if you don’t want–”

“N-No,” Nitori whispered, arching his body gently under Rin’s weight, electrified by Rin’s weight on top of him.

Rin kissed him, plucking at Nitori’s lower lip, the touch of his tongue making Nitori jump. When Rin did it again Nitori opened his lips uncertainly and Rin licked him as he kissed him. The sensation was so strange and startling, Nitori broke away.

“I don’t – know how–” he said apologetically, burning up with embarrassment, knowing it must be obvious he’d never done this before.

Rin stopped kissing him. He put his face against Nitori’s neck with a quiet groan.

“You don’t – have to stop,” Nitori said, his senses full of Rin, Rin’s smell, Rin’s touch, Rin’s body over him, his lips still hot and moist with Rin’s kisses. “I know I’m not good at it, but–”

“No, that’s not–” Rin rolled off of Nitori and lay on his back. “Let me calm down. I’m…just…”

“What?” Nitori whispered, propped himself up on his elbow, peering down at Rin wide-eyed. The scent coming off him was musky and pungent.

“Worked up?” Rin said.

“Oh…” Nitori breathed. He watched Rin a little longer, then said, “I’ll go back to my bed?”

“No.” Rin turned his head towards him. “Stay. We’re only sleeping.”

Nitori lay down next to him. Rin pulled the blanket over them both.

The smell of Rin didn’t fade or seem perceptibly to lessen as they lay next to one another.

Nitori’s eyelids soon grew heavy though. He came awake again when Rin turned on his side, his arm slipping around Nitori’s middle.

Rin snuffed at Nitori’s neck and behind his ear. He tightened his arm, giving Nitori a small squeeze.

“This okay?”

His breath, warm on the shell of Nitori’s ear, made Nitori squirm a little, scrunching his shoulders up, ticklish.

Rin swept his tongue once, twice, behind Nitori’s ear, startling a giggling shout out of him.

“Quiet, you want Mikoshiba to come barging in here?” Rin said.

“Then don’t lick!” Nitori buried his face in the pillow to stifle the giggles that were bubbling up.

“I’m not,” Rin grumbled. He sniffed behind Nitori’s ear again and Nitori pressed his face harder into the pillow, curling up and shaking with another fit of giggles.

“Okay, okay.” Rin left off and dropped his head back onto the pillow. He shuffled around a little under the duvet, almost fidgeting.

Nitori lifted his head and breathed the cool air, his whole face hot. He turned his head cautiously, trying to look back at Rin and see what he was doing.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Nitori faced forwards again hastily and nestled his cheek on the pillow. “Goodnight, Senpai.”

Rin exhaled noisily. “Yeah.”

There was silence for a beat. Nitori stared ahead at the dark room, feeling Rin’s arm warm around him, Rin’s chest against his back.

Rin shifted again, just a little, like he couldn’t get comfortable.

“I can go back up–” Nitori started to say.

Rin’s arm tightened around him. “Let’s just…both go to sleep.”

Nitori pressed his eyes shut. “Mn.”

~*~


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has frottage at the end. The way I've written this fic, the reproductive system of omegas hasn't come up, but I wanted to make it clear in case there's any confusion, omegas have boypussies (they have a vagina but no dick).
> 
> eta: I stopped replying to comments on this because I've felt crappy about becoming blocked with the fic and never being able to complete it. At the same time I didn't want to admit defeat and say I'd abandoned the fic, I still don't feel that way because I really want to write an ending but for now it just won't come. I immensely appreciate all the positive feedback this fic has gotten, thank you.

They were supposed to be doing homework.

At some point Rin’s textbook had slid off his lap and flopped face-down onto the carpet.

Nitori was still learning, and luckily Rin was a patient teacher. He never called attention to Nitori’s inexperience, he accepted his kisses even if they were hesitant or clumsy. 

Figuring out when was the time to kiss was an embarrassing thing.

Nitori had wanted to kiss Rin that morning when they’d been saying goodbye outside the dorms. They’d been standing close to each other like they were about to kiss, but then when Nitori had tilted his head up shyly, he found Rin was looking away, standing his hands in his pockets, so Nitori looked away as well and nothing happened, they just said goodbye and that was it. Maybe Rin hadn’t wanted people to see. Maybe he thought Nitori didn’t know how to kiss, so it was better not to surprise him.

“I wanted to kiss this morning,” Nitori blurted between kisses.

“Hmh?” Rin said distractedly, kissing Nitori’s neck, under his jaw.

“T-This morning…”

Rin kissed his mouth again, slow, withdrawing to change the angle a little, and Nitori’s lips felt tingling and hyper-sensitive in anticipation until Rin’s lips brushed softly against his again, the light touch of his tongue making Nitori’s breath go fluttery, making him feel weak and flushed hot all over. He parted his lips for the next kiss and Rin kissed him once and then again and he slid the tip of his tongue inside, light touch slippery hot and then gone again.

Rin drew back, murmuring, “Want to take a break?”

Nitori blinked his eyes open dazedly. He looked at Rin’s lips, puffy from kissing Nitori. The reality of it was a strange shock still.

They were supposed to be doing homework.

Nitori’s stack of notes lay abandoned on the other side of the room. He’d only come over to get some paper from Rin. Somehow they’d ended up like this, Rin sitting on the bed, Nitori kneeling between Rin’s legs.

The smell of Rin was musky, a quality to it that Nitori was starting to know to recognise.

Nitori leant forward and rubbed his face against Rin’s chest, just following instinct, wanting Rin’s scent on him right then.

He pressed closer. He started to climb up onto the bed.

“Oi – don’t you think – we should–” Rin didn’t finish, lying back, letting Nitori climb on top of him. Rin lay there, looking up at him, and Nitori was arrested for a moment by how beautiful Rin was, his cheeks flushed, his eyes so dark and serious. Nitori felt a thrill of fear almost, he felt hungry and powerful as well as shaky as he leant down and plucked at Rin’s lips again.

Rin’s hands moved over him as they kissed. His breath hitched softly when Nitori shifted against him, seeking a better angle.

“O-Oi.” Rin put his hand on Nitori’s shoulder and gently eased him back as he sat up.

Nitori felt slow and woozy with the scent of him. He sat back, his head spinning, his face hot.

“We should cool it,” Rin said.

“Okay,” Nitori breathed. He darted in to kiss Rin a final time, a quick kiss, then he gave Rin a playful nip on the jaw, feeling shy and trying to cover it. He was surprised when Rin growled and his hand went to Nitori’s hair, holding Nitori still as he kissed him. It was too easy then to slide back into what felt good. Soon Nitori was moving gently against Rin as they kissed and Rin’s hands were stroking down his back, encouraging him, holding his hips as he moved in Rin’s lap. 

Nitori could feel how Rin was getting worked up. Rin panted a little kissing him, not so careful tasting his mouth, their tongues touching, their kiss with wet little smacking sounds pressing and parting, Nitori shakily following Rin’s lead. He felt hot all over, greedy to keep going.

Rin’s hand slid down from Nitori’s hip and he took warm and firm grasp of his buttock, squeezing the soft flesh and firmly drawing Nitori tighter against him, the touch like a brand through Nitori’s shorts.

“Fuck,” Rin huffed, lifting his hands away quickly, holding them up either side of his head. “Okay.”

“Senpai…” Nitori breathed. He ducked his head down and sniffed delicately at Rin’s neck, the rich scent there inviting him. He shifted his hips gently as he did so, experimentally.

Rin’s hands snapped to his waist at once, stilling him. Rin’s dark eyes locked with Nitori’s.

“Let’s cool it.” Rin nudged at Nitori’s leg and Nitori got off him and lay down on the mattress.

Rin sat forward with his elbows on his knees, rubbing his face with both hands.

He got up and opened the window. The cool breeze came in and sent Nitori’s notes on the floor fluttering.

~*~

Nitori ploughed through the water, his arm outstretched, fingers splayed and straining to reach.

He made contact with the wall and dunked himself under, his face hot with exertion, capillaries beating. He broke the surface panting, wrenched the goggles off his face and threw his arm over the lane divider and hung there gulping for breath.

Mikoshiba squatted down at the pool’s edge, the cord of the stopwatch dangling down.

“That tumble still needs work.”

“But – my time?” Nitori said between breaths, wiping water out his eyes.

“Four-thirty.” Mikoshiba held the watch for him to see. “Take off another minute, you could be in the next tournament.”

“You mean it?”

“If you take that minute off.” Mikoshiba pushed to his feet and slipped his clipboard from under his arm, unhooked the pen and made a note.

Nitori bobbed in the water, his mouth pressed into the wet crook of his arm.

“Come on out of there,” Mikoshiba tucked the clipboard back under his arm. “You’re taking up the lane.”

“I was thinking I’d do a few more–”

“That’s enough for today,” Mikoshiba said. “That minute’s not going anywhere, it’ll still be there tomorrow.” He pointed in the direction of the showers and said nothing else, waiting while Nitori ducked under the divider and swam over to the ladder and hauled himself up.

“Matsuoka was here earlier,” Mikoshiba said.

“Oh.” Nitori hid his surprise. He thought Rin had said he was going to the library.

“He’d better not start overdoing it again,” Mikoshiba said, looping the stopwatch lanyard over his head. “Is he still determined to do the relay?”

Nitori stood dripping water, his hands jammed under his armpits, arms wrapped around him, already shivering slightly in the cool air.

“I – I think so.”

“Hn.” Mikoshiba frowned, looking down at his clipboard. “You know, ‘team player’ isn’t exactly the first thing I think when I think of Matsuoka. It’s a strange choice.”

Mikoshiba lifted his head, and seeing Nitori, he remembered himself. “Go on, go get showered.”

Nitori bobbed his head and turned.

“And Nitori,” Mikoshiba called after him. “You keep swimming like that!”

~*~

Nitori looked out the big windows at the front of the sports centre, checking to see if Rin was standing outside, but there was nobody there.

He went bought a soda from the vending machine while he waited.

He was walking back to the entrance when he thought he caught a trace of Rin's scent on the air. He paused and turned in place. Not really convinced, he followed the faint smell anyway. It led him back the way he'd come, down a corridor.

He pushed through some doors to the corridor the led to the couch's office, and at the other end of the corridor stood Rin, talking with Mikoshiba, the captain leaning in the office doorway, his arm hitched up on the doorframe.

They both looked round at Nitori’s approach, Rin met his gaze for a moment and then turned his head away, saying something to Mikoshiba in an undertone.

“He was standing around like an abandoned dog,” Mikoshiba called to Nitori. “It was a miserable sight.”

“Shut up,” Rin muttered.

“Hi,” Nitori greeted Rin quietly, shy in front of Mikoshiba. Rin glanced at him, his eyes looking him briefly up and down, then he reached out and took loose hold of Nitori round the back of the neck.

“Let’s go.” He moved his body to encourage Nitori to start walking.

“Oi, Matsuoka,” Mikoshiba said, unmoving, hanging casually out the doorway.

“What,” Rin said flatly, not lifting his gaze.

“You think about what I said.”

“Yeah, sure.” Rin’s hand stayed resting warm on the back on Nitori’s neck.

They walked in silence down the corridor, back through the changing rooms. Nitori glanced up at Rin, trying to read his expression.

They stopped outside the entrance and Rin waited while Nitori got his soda out his bag.

“What were you talking about?” Nitori said, popping the tab and taking a drink.

“Nothing.”

They started walking again. Nitori held the can out to Rin and Rin took it and drank.

“He said you got your time down,” Rin said.

Nitori shrugged. Rin handed him the can back and took a hold of him round the neck again.

“Four-thirty. That’s pretty good.”

“He said I can compete next year if I take a minute off!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah – and we’ll both be competing then!” Nitori glanced up at Rin. “That’d be great, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Rin was looking ahead, squinting a little against the sun, his expression distant like his thoughts were somewhere else.

“Did he want to talk to you about the relay?” Nitori said.

Rin blinked, coming back to the present. “Huh? No.”

The dorm room was warm and full of orange light from the low sun coming through the window.

Rin closed the door behind them and Nitori dropped his bag and sidled close, butting and rubbing his forehead and his face against Rin’s chest, knowing how Rin liked to scent mark after swimming, after the chlorine and showering.

Nitori snuffled at Rin’s t-shirt, grunting soft wolfish sounds as he rubbed Rin’s smell on his face. Rin’s hands came up to rest on his shoulders.

“Hey.”

Nitori lifted his head. Rin’s face looked handsome in the afternoon light. His auburn hair seemed to have threads of gold in it.

Rin considered him. His hand slid up the side of Nitori’s neck and Nitori tipped his head to one side to let him touch him, showing him he was ready.

But instead of walking him back to the bed, Rin lowered his hands to his sides and took a step back.

“So, uh. You got a lot of work?”

Nitori shook his head, reaching out and plucking at the front of Rin’s t-shirt. “Do you?”

“No. I mean, I got a lot done. I should probably…work some more on my essay tonight…but it’s basically…done.”

Nitori had come close again and gone back to rubbing against Rin’s chest. It was his usual invitation to scent mark, and Rin usually got the message.

“Senpai,” he huffed when Rin just continued to stand there.

“Ai, listen…”

“What is it?” Nitori blinked a little drowsily. “I want to scent mark.”

“I know, but…” Rin’s expression was looser now, his gaze flickered between Nitori’s eyes and his mouth.

“But what?” Nitori licked his lips, tipping his face up, ready for a kiss.

Rin exhaled and leant down like he couldn’t help it.

Nitori drew Rin along, kissing him, brushing at his chest and neck with his hands, making small noises to encourage him as he backed them towards the bed.

He sat on the lower bunk and scooted back and Rin knelt over him, bending to kiss him, his hand coming to rest on Nitori’s belly, the touch something taboo, causing Nitori to freeze.

“Sorry.” Rin reared back slow and clumsy, lifting his hand away, reaching behind him to hold onto the bed frame.

“It’s okay–”

“No.”

“It is.” Nitori moved so he could sit up. He nuzzled Rin’s neck. He kissed the gland one side of his throat, licked him there. Rin held still, hanging by his arm holding onto the bed rail, breathing warm puffs of breath, his mouth loose. Nitori kissed along his jaw and then brushed their mouths together, licking delicately at Rin’s lower lip, kissing him softly.

As Rin began to lean into him, it was easy to coax him down again, lie back bit by bit between kisses so Rin would have to follow and then Rin was lying on top of him, settled between Nitori’s spread thighs, Rin’s hand in his hair at the crown of his head, the rhythm of the kisses getting deeper, both of them getting breathless and hot. Nitori could feel Rin was getting excited and he started to move his hips gently in response.

“Okay.” Rin lifted up on hands and knees. “We gotta stop. This is– Look, we’ve gotta talk for a minute–”

He’d climbed off Nitori and sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his face.

Nitori sat up as well, self-conscious, gathering a pillow into his lap and hugging it to him.

“Mikoshiba doesn’t think we should be rooming together,” Rin said abruptly.

Nitori blinked. “What? Why not?”

Rin hung his head down, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “He’s giving me all this shit because I said I was going to tell Hirotsu-sensei we were together now and I didn’t. So he’s saying he’s going to fucking rat on us. He gave me this whole speech about how the school should know and they’d be right to split us up because we shouldn’t be living close together like this.” Rin pushed sharply to his feet.

“But why?” Nitori scrambled after him, pushing the pillow away as he stood.

“Because he’s an asshole who’s got nothing going on in his own life.”

“What’s wrong with us being together?”

“The school’s already paranoid about something like this happening,” Rin said. “They let the omegas mix instead of having them in a separate dorm because they want to say they’re progressive, but they’ll freak out.” Rin shook his head, then added darkly, “They don’t care when it’s alphas and betas messing around. They just pretend they don’t know it happens.”

“Maybe if we just tell the school, they’ll let us stay together?” Nitori said. “If we explain?”

“They won’t. They’re not going to want to look like they’re encouraging it.”

“Why does the captain have to tell? Can’t you stop him?” Nitori hid his face against Rin’s chest, mumbling, “I don’t want to room with someone else!”

Rin rubbed the back of Nitori’s neck to calm him. “I think Mikoshiba’s just…trying to make me be more responsible. I mean, I get it. Stuff can happen kind of fast like this. Living together.” He took his hand away. “Mikoshiba had a point with some of the stuff he said.”

Nitori lifted his head, looking up at Rin in surprise.

“Like…I don’t know.” Rin stepped back from him. “Maybe we’re going too fast. Scent marking makes everything feels really intense–”

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Nitori said. “That’s what you do when you’re pack!”

Rin rubbed at his face with a noise of frustration. “I know. But we’ve just – we’ve got to stop doing it on the bed. We need some rules or something, we can’t just keep–”

“But I like it,” Nitori interrupted, the words out his mouth just like that.

“This is your first time with – with everything–”

“So what?” Nitori said, embarrassed.

“So you might think you’re ready to do something when it’s happening, but then we do it and–” Rin turned away like the conversation was too much. “Mikoshiba said. It’s – it’s like it’s putting you in this position where you feel like you can’t say no because we’re together all the time–”

“That’s not how it is!” Nitori said hotly. “Why do you have to listen to Mikoshiba-senpai?”

Rin’s eyes flashed. “I don’t. But he actually knows what he’s talking about. He dated an omega before. I don’t want us doing stuff and then – then you start to wish we hadn’t–”

“I won’t!”

Rin shook his head, turning away.

“You don’t listen to me!” Nitori sat down heavily on the lower bunk, his chin propped in his hands, he scowled at the floor.

~*~

Rin got in just before curfew.

“Yo.”

He banged the door shut behind him and threw his bag on the floor, threw himself down on the lower bunk, sprawled out flat on his back, his arm thrown across his eyes, his hair loose and wet on the pillow.

“Senpai – you went swimming again?” Nitori pushed his homework aside, twisting round in his chair. 

Rin grunted.

“You said you were only doing two sessions a day,” Nitori said sternly.

“It’s fine,” Rin said, remaining motionless. Everything from the limp sprawl of his body to the low, scratchy quality of his voice spoke of exhaustion.

Nitori picked up the slip of paper he’d left on top of a stack of books on his desk.

“Senpai?”

“Mnh.”

“There was another note for you.” Nitori held up the folded note which had Rin’s name written on one side. “It was stuck to the door.”

Rin gave no reaction for a few seconds, then he drew in a deep breath, his chest slowly rising. He blew the breath out with a sigh.

“Here,” Nitori said, starting to get to his feet, intending to pass Rin the note.

“Just throw it away,” Rin said.

“But–” Nitori sank back down on his seat. “You should read it.”

Rin lifted his arm and rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “What’s it say?”

Nitori unfolded the paper. “It’s from Tsuyoshi-san. He says practice is at five tomorrow.”

Rin suppressed a yawn, the muscles along his jaw working even as he tried to keep his mouth closed.

“Are you going to go?” Nitori said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Rin put his arm over his eyes again.

“Senpai?”

“Got my own routine,” Rin said, his voice soft, like he was already half-asleep.

Nitori folded with the slip of paper. “You remember you promised you’d take a break from training if I said so?” He flickered a look at Rin and quickly went on, “I’m not saying you should stop, but you’ve been pushing yourself so hard lately. When you’re on your own, I think you don’t realise when you’re overdoing it. Maybe if you tried practicing with the rest of your team, you could find a better routine and you won’t exhaust yourself?”

Rin was silent.

“Do you think that might work?” Nitori said tentatively.

“Mnh.”

“So you’ll try it?”

“Mnh.”

“Oh!” Nitori sprang up and went over to the bed. “I’m glad, Senpai.”

He knelt on the bed and Rin breathed in thickly through his nose and then tucked his arm behind his head and blinked up at Nitori.

“Hey,” he said quietly. He shifted his head against his arm, his gaze was warm and drowsy. Nitori felt a tight clutching feeling in his chest looking at him. Rin’s lips looked soft, they were just slightly parted.

“What?” Rin murmured.

“N-Nothing.” 

Nitori cuddled with him on the bed and they started kissing. When Nitori tried nosing under Rin’s jaw, Rin stopped him.

“Oi…we said no scent marking on the bed.” 

“You don’t want to?”

“I do,” Rin sighed, lying back. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “You know that’s not it.”

Nitori wanted to go on kissing, but he wasn’t sure if Rin felt like it anymore. 

They lay close for a while, Nitori lying half-across Rin’s chest and Rin’s arm draped over him.

“Senpai?” Nitori said softly.

He lifted his head when Rin made no reply and saw Rin’s eyes were closed, his expression slack in sleep.

Nitori lay his head down again with a small sigh.

~*~

Rin got back late again the next evening and so Nitori simply assumed he’d attended the practice session with the rest of the relay team. He found out the truth on Wednesday afternoon.

They caught him as he was heading back to the dorms.

“Oi! Nitori!”

“Wait there!”

Nitori stopped and looked up, creating a minor blockage in the flow of students trying to go down the stairs.

Three boys were leaning over the railings above, their heads bent close.

“Don’t move – we need to talk to you!” one of them called. 

Behind him, students were getting annoyed at Nitori for being in the way. Flustered, Nitori kept walking.

“Oi! Don’t ignore us!” a voice shouted after him.

They caught up to him out in the yard, Tsuyoshi overtaking him, Yuuki and Masaru falling in either side of him so there was no escape.

“Look, this is his last warning,” Tsuyoshi said breathlessly, walking backwards, facing Nitori.

“We’ve told the captain,” Masaru said.

“We’re not messing around anymore,” Yuuki said. “It’s about time Matsuoka dropped all this big alpha ego bullshit. You tell him from us, if he can’t be bothered to show up to practice, we don’t want to swim with him.”

“He – he’s been training every day!” Nitori said, stopping in place, so the three older boys stopped with him.

“We wouldn’t know about that, would we?” Masaru said.

“This is the _relay_.” Yuuki threw down his school bag. “We need to practice together! He signed up for this! It’s a _team_ event!”

Nitori rallied himself and tried again, “I’m sure he’ll practice with you closer the time–”

“Closer the time?” Yuuki repeated. “The competition’s _next Saturday_. At this rate we won’t even have done exchanges with him.”

“I–I’m sure if you just talk to him–” Nitori looked from one tense, irritable face to the other.

“We’ve tried,” Masaru said.

“He thinks he’s Samezuka’s best swimmer or something, he thinks he’s above everyone else,” Yuuki said. “This whole time he hasn’t said more than two words to any of us. He doesn’t return calls or reply to texts. Why’d he join this team if he thinks he’s so great all on his own?”

Masaru nodded along grimly.

Tsuyoshi finally seemed to notice the way Nitori was wilting under this tirade and he held up his hand to quiet Yuuki.

“We just need you to tell him from us,” he said in measured tones. “We’re not just going to sit around waiting on him. We’ve been busting our asses training as a team. But this team needs four people. He needs to show us he wants a place. All we’re asking you to do is pass on the message. You’re his roommate, he can’t avoid you like he’s been avoiding us. Will you do it?”

Nitori nodded reluctantly.

“Good.” Tsuyoshi gestured to the other two. “Come on, guys.”

Yuuki bent and picked up his bag, hooking it over his shoulder with an irritable motion.

Nitori kept his eyes down until they moved off, then he lifted his head and watched the three of them walking together. They talked amongst themselves as they went, their voices lowered, Tsuyoshi in the middle, clearly trying to placate the other two.

They looked like they were friends. Swimming in a team could bring people together like that.

Nitori tried to picture Rin walking with them, the fourth member to fill out the team. He found himself thinking of Rin with three different boys instead.

~*~

“Regionals is almost a week away,” Rin said, sat on a bench in the changing rooms with his head buried in a towel. “I need to get in as much practice as I can–”

“I thought you were going to start training with your team.”

Rin said nothing while he finished scrubbing his head and threw the towel aside, raking back his damp hair as he stood.

Nitori grabbed his arm as he tried to go past him. “You push yourself too hard when you train on your own!”

Rin glanced down the bank of lockers, checking to see if anyone was around. He put his hand over Nitori’s, lifting it off, saying, “Not here.”

“You promised you’d listen–”

“Not here, Ai,” Rin said sharply, moving past him.

~*~

Nitori sighed and let the book he was holding up flop onto his face, closing his eyes against the dark wedge, breathing in the smell of paper and ink.

The room was quiet, through the walls muffled laughter from a couple rooms down, a boy’s voice shouting something, then quiet again.

Nitori lay the book on his chest and put his arm across his eyes to block out the light.

He was woken by the sound of the door opening. He kept his pose, and Rin was quiet closing the door, quiet laying his stuff down.

The mattress dipped.

Nitori lifted his arm.

“Were you sleeping?” Rin said. He picked up the book off Nitori’s chest and looked at the cover. He looked back at Nitori when Nitori didn’t reply.

Nitori turned onto his side, facing the wall.

“Ai,” Rin sighed. “Don’t be pissed at me.”

“You’re supposed to let me help you.”

“I do,” Rin said. “I’m still training with you, aren’t I?”

“And on your own, in secret.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be a secret,” Rin said. “I do extra stuff on my own sometimes. I knew you’d say I was doing too much, so I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. If you want to swim competitively, this is what it takes. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid–”

“So have I!” Nitori sat up, unable to just lie there listening anymore. “You’re not supposed to train so hard you exhaust yourself and get injured.”

Rin tossed the book down on the bed between them. “That was one time.”

“What about your team?”

“What about them? You think guys like them can help me improve? They don’t have the right mentality, how are they supposed to make me a better competitor?”

“You don’t take care of yourself when you’re like this–”

Rin laughed. “Like what?”

“Off on your own all the time. You overwork yourself. You won’t accept help from anyone.”

“Come on.” Rin had turned away, sat hunching forward. “You’re talking like you’re my mom or something. You know why I have to train hard – I’m competing in a few days.”

“In the relay.”

“And?” Something dark came into Rin’s tone, a warning note.

“Why, Senpai?” Nitori cried. “Why did you change to the relay?”

“Jesus,” Rin muttered, pushing to his feet. “Do I have to hear this shit from you as well?” He went over to his desk and roughly unzipped his school bag and started pulling his stuff out.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Nitori pressed. “You already beat Nanase-san–”

“Don’t,” Rin barked, his movements freezing for a moment. The sudden hard silence made Nitori cringe, tuck his head down.

Rin dumped the rest of his workbooks out on the desk, keeping his back to Nitori.

Nitori made his voice soft. “I just want to understand–”

“Well maybe I don’t want to fucking talk about it!” Rin exploded. “You don’t have to know every single thing. You’re already in my head twenty-four seven, isn’t that enough?”

Nitori curled up on himself, his arms squeezing tight around his knees, his hands gripping his elbows.

There was another silence.

The tense set of Rin’s shoulders dropped abruptly and he turned around.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re in my head too,” Nitori said quietly, staring out of focus at the tops of his knees. “If going off on your own made you happy, I’d be happy too.”

“Ai–” 

“What happened?” Nitori said suddenly, meeting Rin’s eye earnestly. He couldn’t keep the slight waver out of his voice. “Rin-senpai. What happened between you and Nanase-san?”

Rin turned away. “Why are you asking me that now?”

He stood with his back to Nitori.

“Maybe if you…talked about it…” Nitori trailed off weakly.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Rin went over to the door. “I’m going for a walk,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Nitori blurted out, struggling to his feet. “Please forget I said anything–”

Rin had already shut the door behind him.

Nitori sank down to sit on the bed again. The empty room seemed to press in on him, like it had gotten smaller.

~*~

Rin wasn’t around much the next day.

Nitori ate lunch on his own, the text he sent got no reply.

After his final class, he went to the sports centre and looked in at the pool. There was no sign of Rin.

He sat on the railings outside for a while, the balmy wind ruffling his hair and his school shirt. His blazer was tucked away in his bag – it had been a hot day.

He checked his phone but there was still no word from Rin.

~*~

He’d been for a run, he was in the middle of changing, pushing down his shorts, stepping out of them pooled round his ankles, when the door clicked open.

He spun round startled – he’d forgotten to put the door wedge under the door.

His eyes locked with Rin’s.

Rin paused in the doorway for a moment before he came inside. Nitori tugged the bottom of his t-shirt down trying to hide his underwear. He stood flustered and caught off-guard. 

“Rin-senpai–”

Rin closed the door.

“Sorry,” he said. “I should have knocked.”

“Th-that’s okay.”

Rin’s eyes flickered over him and Nitori felt a rush of heat go through him, even though he thought he must look like a mess, sweaty and red-faced.

“Been for a run?” Rin said.

Nitori nodded.

Rin put his bag down by the door and came slowly towards Nitori. His nostrils flared with each breath as he scented the air, and Nitori fought off total embarrassment, knowing how strongly he smelled, his skin hot and clammy.

“I text you…” Nitori mumbled, staring straight ahead at Rin’s chest.

He started slightly as Rin touched the back of his hand. His fingers were curled tight holding onto the bottom of his t-shirt. At Rin’s touch, Nitori relaxed his grip, letting go of his t-shirt. He was blushing hotly as he lifted his eyes to Rin’s face.

“I thought you might be mad at me,” Nitori said.

“No.” Rin stepped even closer. His hands went to Nitori’s hips and he started walking Nitori back, the heated look in his eyes stealing Nitori’s breath away.

Nitori’s pencil case and a couple of books fell to the floor as Rin backed him up against the desk and kissed him. He eased his tongue in repeatedly between Nitori’s lips until Nitori was opening his mouth anticipating it, that slippery heat, a shaky moan escaping him as he received it over and over.

Rin drew back just a little, a delicate strand of saliva connecting their lips. He rubbed his hand carelessly under his jaw and then he cupped Nitori’s cheek with his hand, wiping his scent on him as he guided their mouths together again.

Rin’s scent strong on him, Nitori couldn’t keep still, rubbing against Rin as they kissed, breathing fast with excitement. Rin growled and clutched at Nitori’s sweaty t-shirt, put his hand up under it, touching Nitori’s ribs, up his back between his shoulder blades, his hand warm against Nitori’s his bare skin.

Nitori began to answer Rin with his kiss, using his tongue like Rin did, licking at Rin’s lips, sliding shyly into Rin’s mouth to taste.

Rin broke away abruptly.

“Senpai?” Nitori said breathlessly.

“I’ve gotta – I should go.”

Rin drew back, raking his hand through his hair. Nitori tugged his t-shirt straight, his face burning hot, his lips still moist and tingling from kissing. He felt vulnerable and wrong-footed – had Rin withdrawn because he hadn’t liked it? He’d been fine right until Nitori had tried kissing him back.

Rin bent to get his bag off the floor. He hooked the strap over his shoulder, his back to Nitori.

“I gotta get to practice,” he said. “Sorry.” He looked back at Nitori for a moment, then quickly averted his eyes. “I’ll be staying late again.”

“O-Okay.”

Nitori leant back against the desk after Rin had gone. He touched his cheek, breathed in Rin’s scent lingering on him.

~*~

Rin had said he’d be back late, but when it was getting close to curfew and he still hadn’t returned, Nitori started to worry.

“He showed up to relay practice,” Mikoshiba said, standing in the doorway of his room. “It was bad.”

“Bad?”

“Mn,” Mikoshiba sighed, rubbing his neck. “He’s too standoffish with the others. It’s getting to be bothersome.”

“He hasn’t been answering his phone,” Nitori said, keeping his voice down because they were out in the corridor.

“The pool’s closed up now,” Mikoshiba said. “He’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”

Five minutes past curfew Nitori was pacing back and forth, alone still in the bedroom, his phone in his hands. It was stupid to worry. Rin would come through the door just before the last check and everything would be alright.

Another ten minutes crept by.

Soon a teacher would come to look in on each room and make sure the students were where they were supposed to be.

Nitori arranged some pillows on the top bunk and covered them with the duvet, then he sat on Rin’s bed, legs folded, pretending to read, and listened out for the sound of the teacher’s voice coming down the corridor.

There was a knock at the door.

Nitori threw his book aside and sprang up.

“Still not back?” Mikoshiba said, looking past Nitori’s shoulder. “You could get in trouble for that,” he said, taking note of the pillow-person on the top bunk.

“He’ll be back soon,” Nitori said, trying to sound confident.

“This sounds like the teacher now.” Mikoshiba looked down the corridor. “I’d better go.”

Nitori closed the door and hurriedly took up his place again, the book spread open on his lap, his chin propped on his hand, he did his best to look innocent and studious.

He jumped up at the last minute to check that the pillows were properly covered on the top bunk, then ran over to snap off the main light, leaving only his desk lamp on.

He dropped down heavily on the lower bunk again, folding into a sitting position just as the door opened.

The teacher stuck his head in.

“Lights out by ten, boys.”

“Y-Yes, sir!” Nitori said smartly, straightening up stiffly.

The door clicked shut.

Nitori’s heart was pounding. He realised he’d been holding his book upside-down.

~*~

The fire escape door around the back of the sports centre had been propped open narrowly with a wet floor sign. From a distance the door looked like it was closed.

Nitori slipped inside.

He’d never been inside the centre after curfew, and walking through the large empty building was a little eerie.

He shone the light on his phone down a bank of lockers, sweeping the light back and forth briefly before moving on.

Wavering light danced along the walls as Nitori followed the passage out to the pool.

There was someone floating in the water, a dark motionless shape, lit from underneath, the round lights that were inlaid around the edge of the pool broken up wobbling under the water.

The lane dividers had been taken up and Rin drifted on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Nitori thought about calling to him, but something made him remain silent.

He reached up and pulled his t-shirt off over his head and threw it aside. He was toeing off his sneakers when Rin twisted round in the water, rearing upright.

“Ai,” he said in surprise. He wasn’t wearing goggles or a cap, his hair wet, still pulled up in a tie. “What are you doing here?”

Nitori pushed his sweat pants down and stepped out of them.

“Oi–” Rin said, and whatever he said after that Nitori didn’t hear as he dived into the water.

He swam to Rin, the blurred shape of him under the water.

He broke the surface, reaching to wipe his wet hair back. He felt with his feet, it was too deep to stand.

“You’re crazy,” Rin said. “You seriously jumped in in your underwear?”

“Not so loud,” Nitori said.

“Nobody’s here.”

The light through the water cast patterns on their skin, the water rippling, disturbed by Nitori’s dive. They were close, both with their arms moving under the water to keep afloat.

“You know we’ll get in trouble if anybody looks in here,” Rin said.

“You were in here,” Nitori pointed out.

“Yeah, well…” Rin looked away, sinking for a moment so his chin touched the water. “You came to find me, huh?”

“You didn’t come back.”

“I was about to.”

Nitori looked around at the expanse of water, the glow of the underwater lights, the dimness beyond the pool’s edge.

“It’s nice when nobody’s here, isn’t it?” Nitori tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling, the water lapping his neck and under his ears. Realization dawned on him abruptly and he looked again at Rin. “Do you want me to go?”

“What?” Rin had been staring at his exposed neck. He blinked. “No. I just…didn’t want to keep taking my shitty mood out on you.”

Nitori’s thoughts went back to earlier, the way Rin had pulled back when they’d been kissing. Was that really the reason?

Rin drew himself back through the water, swam in a slow circle around Nitori. “I know I haven’t been around a lot lately.”

“You have to work hard,” Nitori said, turning in place to keep Rin in sight as he circled him.

Rin looked aside. After a moment his expression darkened. 

“You know that asshole came by here?” He gestured to his face. “That loser with the glasses?”

Nitori’s mind flashed to the Iwatobi team. “They came here?”

Rin shook his head. “Just him.”

“Did he come to intimidate you?”

“Tch. Him, intimidate?” Rin muttered.

“What did he want?”

Rin said nothing for a moment, like he hadn’t heard. 

He swam closer to Nitori, stopping in front of him. His eyes fixed on Nitori with sudden intensity. 

“I don’t even know why I still give a shit,” he said darkly. “I was happy right after I beat Haru. I don’t know why it still matters.”

Nitori stared at the lights wavering on the water’s surface.

 _“Having a bond with someone is serious. It changes everything. When I left Japan, I left something behind. I wasn’t whole.”_ Wasn’t that what Rin had said?

Was that still how Rin felt? He’d had a bond with Nanase-san, the first bond he’d formed outside of his family probably…

“What’s with that face?” Rin said quietly, interrupting Nitori’s thoughts.

“Oh! N-Nothing.”

Rin arched an eyebrow. “What is it?”

Nitori hesitated. He wasn’t sure he was brave enough to ask the thing he really wanted to about Nanase-san, not yet. So he settled on the other issue that had been troubling him.

“Well, b-before…when you left…” He couldn’t meet Rin’s eye. He spoke the rest in a rush, his chin tucked down and his eyes squeezed shut, “I know I’m not good at kissing yet, but I want to get better, so please show me!”

There was silence, then Rin said flatly, “What?”

Nitori turned his head away.

“What are you talking about?” Rin said.

“W-When we kiss – I know I’m not good at it and you want to stop–”

“Ai!” Rin’s tone of voice made Nitori look up in surprise. Rin was staring at him in disbelief. “You seriously think that’s the reason? You don’t get it’s the opposite?” He sounding almost angry, and his gaze was so fierce Nitori didn’t dare look away. 

“You turn me on when you’re not even trying,” Rin said in a low voice. “The way you smell, the way you taste. The way you are.” His eyes roved over Nitori’s face. “I wanted to take it slow, I didn’t want you to feel pressured. But when I came in the room and smelled you…” 

They were both moving a little unsteadily, treading water.

“I can’t think straight when we’re– when it’s like that. I just…I want to keep kissing you and…other stuff. But I don’t want to go too fast. I want it to be when you’re ready. So that’s…why I backed off.”

“Oh,” Nitori said in a tiny voice. There was a tight tumultuous bundle of feeling in his chest that felt like it was too big for his body to contain. He let himself sink under for a moment, the water cool against his burning face. He resurfaced, blinking away droplets from his eyelashes, wiping his wet hair back from his forehead. 

Rin tossed his head, indicating that Nitori should follow him.

They swam to the pool’s edge. They were deep, but they were still a ways off from the blocks.

Nitori reached up and caught hold of the poolside and Rin reached over Nitori’s head and took a hold of the lip of the wall as well, his hand next to Nitori’s. 

He moved closer, encircled his arm around Nitori’s waist, drawing him against him.

Nitori let go of the wall and braced his hands on Rin’s shoulders, letting Rin take his weight.

“You thought I didn’t like kissing you?” Rin said.

“I don’t know…” Nitori mumbled, feeling silly.

Rin leant in and kissed him slowly. 

“You couldn’t tell?” he murmured.

Nitori’s eyes fluttered closed as Rin gave him another kiss, then another. Trembling, Nitori opening his mouth to let Rin ease his tongue inside. The water slapped against their shoulders as their kiss deepened. Nitori fingers curled in Rin’s wet hair at the nape of his neck. Their bodies clung together, pressing and shifting with the sway of the water, Nitori’s back bumped against the wall as Rin pressed him up against it. Rin’s hand ghosted over Nitori’s ribs, slid down to his hip, then he drew Nitori’s thigh up over his hip, slid his hand down to cup at Nitori’s bum through his wet cotton briefs, drawing him tight against him.

It was impossible not to notice Rin’s excitement with their bodies pressed close like this. Rin’s powerful swimmer’s legs kicked slow as he rubbed up against Nitori, letting him feel him, and with his kiss coaxing Nitori to be bolder, to slip his tongue between Rin’s lips.

There was a muffled bang from somewhere inside the building.

Nitori broke the kiss, tensing in Rin’s arms.

“What was that?” he whispered.

Rin had ducked his head to suck kisses under Nitori’s jaw, stimulating his scent glands, and Nitori found it hard to think about anything else. He let his head tip back against the wall. Through slitted eyes he saw the flash of a torch beam.

“Someone’s there,” he gasped, gripping Rin’s shoulders, trying to lower his legs from around Rin’s waist.

Rin turned his head to look.

“What do we do?” Nitori whispered. With a cold rush of dread he remembered his clothes, abandoned in a pile by the edge of the pool.

“Should we dive under?” Nitori stared with round eyes at the wobbling torch beam on the wall. A second later the person carrying the torch came into view – a man wearing a cap, a dark bulky jacket. It was the security guard.

Rin growled low in his throat and pressed Nitori against the wall.

“Shh, Senpai,” Nitori whispered desperately, sinking down in the water, hiding his face against Rin’s neck. Rin’s growl quieted to nothing.

Nitori braced himself for an angry voice shouting from across the pool. There was silence.

He could feel the warm puff of Rin’s breath against his wet skin. The rich smell of him was distracting. Rin was still hard. Nitori could feel him against his hip.

Seconds crawled by. Nitori dared to peek over Rin’s shoulder.

The torch beam was focused on the bank of red lockers. The man was standing with his back to the pool, the torch tucked under his arm as he collected something from one of the lockers.

There was a jangling of keys, the bang of the locker closing, then the man went back into the changing rooms, the harsh glow of the torch beam disappearing with him.

“He’s gone,” Nitori whispered on a sharp exhale of relief.

Rin didn’t relax, his arm stayed locked around Nitori.

“We should get out,” Nitori said.

Rin seemed to take a moment to hear him.

They climbed out, Nitori first, then Rin. Nitori took the opportunity to discreetly reach behind him and pull at his soaking briefs where they were giving him a wedgie.

Rin hauled himself up in one swift powerful motion, the water rushing off of him.

Nitori positioned his hands shyly in front of himself, self-conscious of the wet cotton clinging to him in a way his swim shorts didn’t.

“Is he going to come back?” he whispered.

Rin reached down to adjust his erection in his shorts. Nitori’s eyes were drawn in helpless fascination. When he looked up, Rin was watching him.

His body flushed hot at being caught.

Rin stepped towards him. “You’re shivering.”

~*~

   
The door of the shower stall banged as they knocked into it, then they were inside. Rin kissed Nitori with a hot mouth. Their flesh was chilled, both of them dripping cold pool water.

Rin felt for the tap in the dark. For a second they were spattered with cold and Rin swore while Nitori cringed back.

Rin pulled door closed and they stood out of the spray, looking at each other, Nitori’s heart thumping, the two of them close in the dark little shower stall. They were kissing again as the water warmed and Rin turned them so Nitori was under the spray. He stood behind Nitori, pressed close against his back, his hands on Nitori’s hips. The warm water ran down Nitori’s chest. Rin licked Nitori behind the ear, and said breathlessly, “Can I – like this?”

He was already twitching his hips a little, restlessly, rubbing against Nitori’s bum.

Nitori took a second to realise. 

All he knew about alphas humping was that it was a game among them as children – Nitori had seen it on the playground when he was younger. A few times he’d even seen boys at Samezuka do it to each other as a joke when they were play fighting.

Nitori hadn’t expected this, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do, but Rin was breathing roughly, mouthing at Nitori’s neck, the sensitive skin at the juncture between shoulder and neck, his hands clasping his hips firmly.

Nitori softened his body, melting back against Rin to show him submission and Rin groaned, his hand sliding down to his belly with the rivets of warm water and Nitori made a small stunned noise at the intimacy of the action, then a second later his eyelids were drowsy falling closed, the pleasure of it, Rin’s hand resting possessively on his belly, that place of such vulnerability.

He put Nitori against the wall and he could pin him better like that. The warm water rushed from the showerhead and struck their heads, matting their hair flat.

Nitori could smell the musk of Rin’s excitement in the hot clammy air, it made him widen his stance just a little more, arch his back. After so long of Rin controlling himself, to feel him lose his composure like this made Nitori feel molten inside, achy with his own pleasure between his legs.

“ _Ai_ –” Rin pressed Nitori to the wall, latching onto the side of Nitori’s neck, sealing his mouth over a tender spot, a secret knot of nerves. Nitori went weak, a soft wounded cry escaping him.

Rin groaned roughly, rocking against Nitori’s bum, his hips jolting.

The odor of his release drifted thick in the air. Rin went on rubbing himself lazily against Nitori, slowing, his fingers splaying against Nitori’s belly.

He passed his tongue slowly over the place he’d put his mouth, that secret trigger that had made Nitori’s limbs heavy and lax.

His hand slid from Nitori’s belly, down, his thumb hooking in the soaked waistband of Nitori’s briefs just at the dip of his hipbone. He tugged gently with his thumb, letting Nitori feel the possibility, that Rin could draw the waistband down or slide his fingers under.

“Can I touch you?” he breathed.

The hot spray of the shower beat down on Nitori and Nitori’s whole body seemed hyperaware of Rin’s hand resting there. 

Nitori pushed away from the wall, trying to turn round, feeling light-headed. Rin eased back.

“You okay?”

The tender point at Nitori’s neck was throbbing, and as he leant his back against the wet tile he pressed his thighs together tight, muscles quivering, felt it where he was aching, almost like he needed to pee, a hot swollen throb.

“Hey.” Rin pecked him on the mouth, his hand to Nitori’s flushed cheek. “Say something so I know you’re not freaking out.” He nudged the tip of his nose against Nitori’s, playful, but he did it seeking reassurance, a rare show of nerves.

Nitori tilted his chin up and kissed him.

They parted and Rin tried with clumsy fingers to comb Nitori’s wet hair back from his forehead.

“You okay?” he murmured, still with that considering, unsure look.

“Yeah.”

“Sure?”

“Mn.”

Nitori wanted Rin to keep kissing him. He wanted Rin to press close again like before.

He took Rin’s hand and guided it back to his belly.

“Did you mind that?” Rin said in a rough voice.

“No.”

Rin kissed him. He slid his hand between Nitori’s thighs.

Nitori closed his thighs tight, grabbed Rin’s wrist to stop him and Rin took his hand away at once.

“You don’t want me to?” he said. He didn’t sound annoyed at all, but Nitori still covered his face with his hands, feeling childish. 

“I-I’ve never– It’s just, I d-don’t–”

“Okay. It’s okay.”

“Sorry,” Nitori said.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Rin repeated. “You want to head back?”

~*~

There was a warm breeze and the night sky was clear.

Rin glanced back and held out his hand as they went out the fire exit. Nitori reached out and Rin took his hand, linking their fingers.

They walked back to the dorms like that, Rin straight-backed and looking ahead, as if they often did this, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. Nitori walked alongside him brimming with feeling. The warm night breeze smelled sweet. He let his eyes fall closed briefly.

He wished they could have stayed out together as long as they wanted. He wanted to go on carrying this secret moment, that was only for the two of them.

~*~

“Do you want to – again?” Nitori whispered, turning his head on the pillow. They were lying on their sides, Rin against Nitori’s back.

They’d been almost shy with each other in the dark bedroom as they changed – Nitori going behind the wardrobe door, like he always did to get dressed, both of them in underwear and t-shirts they’d climbed onto the lower bunk and made every appearance of settling down to sleep.

What had happened in the shower stall crackled in the air between them, between their bodies.

“Do you?” Rin whispered back, his nose buried in the hair at the nape of Nitori’s neck.

“Mn.”

“This?” Rin’s hand went to Nitori’s hip and he pressed his crotch against Nitori’s bum, like he’d done in the shower.

“Y-Yes.”

It was very good the second time, on the bed, Nitori on his front and Rin on top of him, Rin rolling his hips in an impatient little rhythm, breathing roughly, the bed creaking softly.

Nitori could feel Rin better this way. Rin’s boxers were loose, unlike his jammers, so Nitori could feel Rin much better as he rubbed against Nitori’s bum.

Nitori lay prone with his hot face against the pillow, his lips parted loose and wet as he breathed. He was hyper-conscious of his own backside which now felt so conspicuous, the cheeks so plump, it was like he was presenting it on display, covered only by his white cotton briefs. It was embarrassing and exhilarating to have this part of his body the absolute focus of attention.

“This okay?” Rin breathed.

Nitori shifted his cheek against the pillow, his brow creased softly in a frown, he was so intent on the feeling of Rin’s body against his. “Y-yeah.”

The thin material of Nitori’s underwear dragged taut and loose, taut and loose, as Rin’s bulge rubbed insistently up against him.

Nitori couldn’t keep from thinking about the other schoolboys in the dorm, asleep all around them, right on the other side of the wall, as the mattress springs crunched and bounced quietly with the unabashed rocking of Rin’s hips. Nitori’s face burned with excitement, the thought that someone could hear them. The physical reality of having Rin heavy on top of him, the heat and strength of him. The masculine rich odor of his sex getting more and more potent, his breathing becoming uneven, his hands either side of Nitori gripping the sheet.

“S-Senpai–” Nitori gasped, spreading his legs a little wider, tilting his pelvis, sliding his hand down under his belly and to his crotch and rubbing his fingers against his damp underwear. He thought about how Rin had tried to touch him there, in the stall. A trembling little noise rose up in his throat.

“Quiet,” Rin whispered. “Gotta be quiet, baby–”

Nitori silenced himself and he continued jiggling his fingers against the hood of his clit through the thin cotton while Rin’s bulge rubbed and rubbed him, hot and stiff.

Nitori panted clammy hot breaths into the pillow, wriggling trying to take the strain off his wrist, his fingers still clumsily working against his clit, his underwear clinging to him warm and wet.

Rin went still when he realised Nitori was lying on his arm.

“Are you–” He drew back and Nitori made a noise of displeasure, but it became a squeak as he felt Rin’s hands on his thighs, knew Rin must be looking – and he’d see Nitori’s fingers, see what he’d been doing, that he was touching himself secretly–

“Oh _fuck_. _Ai_ …” Rin’s voice was low, disbelieving, accusatory almost. With both hands he cupped Nitori’s buttocks, spreading the plump cheeks so he could look, and Nitori was frozen, his fingers pressed to his pussy but motionless, caught in the act.

“You touch yourself like that, baby?” Rin said softly. He adjusted his grip just a little. “You don’t have to stop, you can keep going.”

Nitori pressed his burning face into the pillow, his eyes tight shut.

Falteringly, he started to stroke himself again, rubbing his fingers in a circular motion against his clit through the underwear.

“Fuck,” Rin breathed. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.” Nitori felt his hot breath against his naked inner thigh.

Rin’s strong, large hands altered their grip on the globes of Nitori’s ass cheeks again, spreading him a little more, and Nitori murmured an uneasy little noise, squirming trying to bury his hot face.

“Your pussy’s so wet,” Rin murmured, reverence and disbelief in his voice. Nitori jumped as he felt the light, light touch of Rin’s thumb brush against the seam of his pussy lips through the thin, wet cotton. Nitori’s whole body quivered. He whimpered, his mouth open and panting into the pillow.

“Look so good, baby,” Rin’s voice rumbled low, the wolf was in his voice. “Does that feel good when you touch it like that?”

Something about that tone of voice and the things Rin was saying – Nitori was mortified, he couldn’t believe his own behaviour, couldn’t belief how it was affecting him, as he touched himself and Rin watched him and spoke like that. It felt so outside the scope of Nitori’s mundane sense of himself. He’d been having flickers of this other side of himself when he and Rin were kissing and scent marking – but this was going so much further. This feeling was like something forbidden, incredibly private. It was overwhelmingly arousing that Rin was seeing him like this.

Rin’s hand gently squeezed and kneaded Nitori’s ass cheek and Nitori whined, his hips twitching weakly while his fingers kept up their busy motion. 

“Yeah, rub your clit,” Rin said roughly. “Just like that.”

Nitori’s body trembled, his hips bucked fitfully, reacting scandalised to Rin’s commentary. The words were so obscene, and they were true. It was undeniable, the evidence was right before Rin’s eyes, Rin’s hands on him keeping firm hold of his ass cheeks, holding him spread so Rin could see everything.

Rin stroked his thumb with infinite lightness down the seam of Nitori’s lips again. Nitori whinged but it felt so good to be touched there while he worked his clit. His pussy clenched and Rin moved his thumb lightly up and down, the cotton slippery hot with mucus, the outline of Nitori’s lips exposed clearly through the thin wet material. 

“You smell so fucking good,” Rin growled, sounding like he was keeping his voice even with some effort. His thumb was lingering right against the opening of Nitori’s vagina, where it was fever-hot and so wet. He pressed gently into the wet cotton and started rubbing tiny circles and Nitori convulsed, his legs splaying and jerking as his orgasm started to build, he rubbed himself rhythmically on his fingers, worrying at his clit frantically. 

Rin kept his free hand on Nitori’s buttock, holding it spread while his thumb kept up its almost teasing caress of Nitori’s clenching pussy.

“You gonna come, baby?” Rin said. “Feels good?”

Nitori whimpered, smothered the shaky noise into his pillow, his hips trying to lurch, Rin holding him down, talking low and breathless,

“That’s it, baby, that’s so good. Show me how you come like that. I can feel how ready your little pussy is. You can come, baby, it’s okay, it’s okay–”

Nitori bit down on the pillow as his orgasm unfurled, his fingers shaking and rubbing erratically as his clit started to twitch and throb, his pussy clenching in a violent flurry, his opening spasming under the pressure of Rin’s thumb.

The pleasure beat through him in waves.

“I gotta – Ai, I gotta–” Rin had mounted him again, grinding against Nitori’s bum, his hand gripping Nitori’s hip, he mouthed the nape of Nitori’s neck, panting and talking roughly under his breath, “So fucking sexy, Ai, you’re so fucking good–”

Nitori quivered and strained, Rin’s weight good and heavy on top of him, the words of praise from Rin, from an alpha, making him shudder, his pussy still twitching with after-shocks.

“Pussy smells so good,” Rin whispered shakily. “Touching your pussy like that, letting me see–” He hardly seemed aware of what he was saying, his hips rocking, his erection pillowed snug between Nitori’s cheeks, dragging Nitori’s underwear where the material clung to him wet and warm. Nitori’s face was already hot, but it felt like it was on fire at Rin’s words.

“S-Senpai–” he whimpered in protest.

“I want to taste you so bad,” Rin whispered, humping faster, faster. “Making me crazy with that pussy smell, want to taste it–” His words were slurring, mingling with his growl, his mouth right behind Nitori’s ear as he spoke, “Want your pussy smell on me–” Then he groaned low in his throat, his hips stuttered. 

The rhythm of his thrusts became broken and his breath shook out of him in shuddering exhales and Nitori felt the warm damp spread of Rin’s release on his underwear.

Rin’s body quivered like he was stretching luxuriously, a low grumbling sated wolf noise rumbling in his throat as he rubbed himself against Nitori’s bum a couple more times, then he breathed out gustily and sank down on top of Nitori, pressing him to the mattress.

Nitori squirmed under his weight and Rin recalled himself and lifted off, leaning over to rub his face against the back of Nitori’s neck. They lay together, spent, the room quiet except of their breathing.

~*~


End file.
